His Actium
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. Harry works as an unconventional Auror for the Ministry, getting close to suspects and worming their secrets out of them. When Malfoy is linked to a smuggling ring, Harry is assigned to pursue him, with unexpected results. COMPLETE.
1. Assignment Given

**Title: **His Actium

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Warnings: **Sex, infidelity, manipulation, angst. EWE.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Harry/others implied.

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Harry learned the skill of reading people in sheer self-defense after the war. He became good enough at it that the Ministry uses him as an unusual part of its Auror force: he goes undercover and seduces the powerful or suspects whose guilt is in doubt. The Ministry assigns him to Draco Malfoy, widely suspected of smuggling without the proof to back it up, and Harry assumes it will be another challenge in a long string of them. It doesn't quite work out that way.

**Author's Notes: **This fic was inspired by an anonymous commenter who, some months ago, suggested a story where Harry seduces men for the Ministry's sake. Accordingly, it's not very romantic, at least at first. The title refers to the decisive battle between Antony and Octavian for control of the Roman Empire. This story should have nine or ten chapters, and with some luck, will be updated every Saturday evening.

**His Actium**

_Chapter One-Assignment Given_

Harry woke up slowly, and stretched equally slowly. It wasn't often that he had a day just to himself. If he wanted to laze around and enjoy it, he could.

_Oh, and I intend to, _he thought, as he rolled out of bed. The bed stood next to a huge window, one of the few luxuries in this room-he didn't spend a lot of time there-and Harry looked out on its vision of bright green hills with the sun rising behind them. The vision was real, as it happened. Harry had wanted a home in Hogsmeade at first, but his own property, peace and privacy, had proven irresistible in the end.

Harry wandered from the bedroom into the bathroom before he got bored watching the sunrise, since no one wanted him bored, and took a shower as long and leisurely as his waking up. He ducked his head to scrub his fingers through his hair, paused a second, and then snorted and resumed the scrubbing. Just because he wasn't going to work today didn't mean he _had _to have dirty hair. There was a statement of rebellion, and then there was inconveniencing himself.

By the time he'd got all the way through the shower, the water was running cold, the steam had utterly clouded the mirror, and there was a loud, impatient screeching from the rear of the house. Harry rolled his eyes and stepped out of the shower, making sure he had a towel beneath him. He liked the blue tile that made up the bathroom, but one time slipping on it when it was slick had been enough.

"Coming, Fovea!" he called out.

The screeching only got louder. Harry rolled his eyes again and dried himself off, then draped a loose robe around himself and left the bathroom without bothering to shave. He was the only one in the house today, and Fovea didn't care what he looked like, as long as he came bearing food. He snatched up some peanuts from the bowl of them on the table in the main drawing room and stepped into the back, through the door to the aviary.

The large room rippled with wind that spells channeled from the outside, enough to stir the large fronds of the ferns and tropical trees that Harry had decided to plant here. There was greenery everywhere he looked, and blue sky visible through the gaps in the glass and wire-well, except for the one place where a spot of white, topped with yellow, bounced in agitation, and screeched, and yelled.

Harry whistled and lifted his arm. In two instants, the sulphur-crested cockatoo was across the room, perching on his arm as she greedily devoured the nuts from his other hand. She never stopped clucking and screaming and beeping at him as she did it. Harry wasn't sure how, when her mouth was full, but if there was a way to make noise, then Fovea was going to find it.

Hermione had asked Harry, when he first got Fovea, if he wasn't worried about someone stealing her, since she mostly flew around the aviary instead of staying in a cage. Harry had pointed out that he only needed to look for the thief covered with flying feathers, making undignified noises of pain, and missing several fingers.

Fovea finished the last nut and screeched at him again. Harry tossed her back into the air and made his way through the greenery to inspect her major perch. Cockatoo crap covered the ground; he looked at it closely to make sure she wasn't sick, then Vanished it. It didn't take long to scrub her bowls or change out the old water and the fruit in them for fresh. This was something Harry did every day, even when he _did _have to go to work, and he listened with half an ear to Fovea's top-of-her-lungs complaints, advice, and admonitions while he watched her perform acrobatics from one tree to another.

She came down to his shoulder and insisted on some scratches before she flew back to the perch to start in on the fruit. Harry shook his head. "I think I should have named you Noisy," he told her. "Much more succinct." Hermione had been the one to suggest Fovea, when Harry admitted that he had no good ideas and she'd pointed out that the Latin word for "trap" was rather pretty. It was based on Harry's job, and Hermione had looked half-sorry after she suggested it, but Harry had accepted it. He'd made his career, and his life, since the war by taking what others offered him and using it to make himself stronger.

Not that his friends were his enemies, and not that it was healthy to think like that. He shook his head to clear it.

Fovea tossed a scrap of peel at him to show her opinion of his musings, and Harry chuckled and walked back to the house. He was already wondering whether he should catch up on his reading or his sleep, or possibly visit Ron and Hermione because there could never be enough doting on Rose, when his Floo connection chimed.

Harry halted and glared at the large, marble-decorated fireplace that he used for work. This was going to happen _now? _They had promised him a holiday. His last case had been harder than usual, both in the sense that he'd had to spend more time seducing the bastard and because said bastard had held him captive and threatened to torture him before the rescuers arrived, and he _deserved _a holiday.

The chiming repeated, this time with the pattern that meant it was coming from the Head Auror's office. Harry sighed and knelt down in front of it, touching the rose petal on the fireplace that signaled to someone from the other side that the Floo was open.

Robards appeared behind his desk, nodding a brief, distracted greeting. "Potter. Good to see you."

"Sir," Harry said, and let the tone of his voice convey no doubt about how he felt at seeing Robards.

The Head Auror had grace enough to shrug, but no more than that. "Sorry to disturb you," he said, mostly for form's sake. "But there's been another cache of dragons' eggs found, and this time there was a supplier alive to be questioned."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Really." The fools who smuggled dragons' eggs usually incurred their own punishment, as they almost inevitably kept the eggs too warm and the hatchlings piled out early, eating and burning everything in sight. The hardest part of such cases was making sure that they didn't take innocents down with them. "Who did he name?"

Robards drew his hand across his face in a gesture that seemed designed to conceal the snake-like twist to his lips. It didn't work. "Malfoy."

Harry blinked. "Really," he said again. Not much he _could _say, when he hadn't thought to link Malfoy to the eggs pouring into Britain, and as far as he knew no one else had either. "I thought he'd stayed clear of trouble since the war?"

Robards laughed sourly. "That sort always find their way back to tainted water, Potter. You'd know that if you'd been in the Auror business as long as I have."

Harry rolled his eyes, but said nothing. He and Robards had fundamentally opposed views of human nature. Harry had become the kind of Auror he had because he'd learned how to read body language, and hearts, and tempers, in the mob of people that surrounded him immediately after the war, so that he could know who wanted to use him, who would be a true friend, and who wouldn't care if he disappeared or continued existing. He'd had enough surprises to suspect that his first judgments of people were often at fault, whereas Robards believed that an Auror's task was to make snap judgments as fast as possible and ask questions later. "Fine, sir. You want me to go after him?"

"I wouldn't be here if I wanted you to treat him to dinner and a kiss, Potter," Robards said, his exasperation leaking into his voice like steam from a boiling kettle. "Do what you have to."

Harry scowled openly. He was allowed. He'd got the best results for the Auror Department out of any they'd employed so far, the highest number of arrests, even if his methods were unconventional and his playboy reputation increased as a result of each arrest. "Yes, _sir_," he said, and shut the Floo connection before Robards could see the exact nature of the salute Harry was flipping him.

He stood up and sighed for a second, considering. "Do what you have to" meant Harry was authorized to sleep with the suspect, instead of simply flirting with him, making someone else close to the target jealous, or luring someone into confessing secrets with the hope of more, the tactics he used most often.

It wasn't that Harry hated sleeping with men, or even objected to using his body that way for the Ministry. If he had, he never would have taken up this particular way to convince people and make arrests in the first place. What he despised was being rushed into that particular situation without being able to judge for himself it was needed or not.

He hadn't seen Malfoy in ten years, since he returned his wand to him, and felt little but indifference for him now. He couldn't count on Malfoy feeling the same. He might hate Harry, feel contempt for him due to his supposedly endless procession of lovers, or take this as a chance for a little revenge.

But he had his assignment, and the first step was always research, no matter how quickly Robards might want this done. And Harry knew that time _was _of the essence. Malfoy would dispose of any evidence that might be lying about connecting him to dragon eggs as soon as possible-the trade carried a term in Azkaban for a conviction-especially if he knew that one of his minions had been captured.

Doing something fast was worse than not doing it at all, though. Harry reluctantly dismissed the idea of a relaxing holiday and went to activate his network of informants, some of whom knew they were working for him and enjoyed the challenge, others of whom thought they were just trading gossip for "exclusive interviews" or an autograph.

Fovea screeched violently from her perch in the aviary, and there came the splattering sound of something, probably an orange, hitting the wall.

"My feelings exactly!" Harry called back.

Harry took his own bite of a strawberry, ignoring Fovea's begging from her perch in the corner, and scanned the collection of information he'd received about Malfoy. It was impressive, everything from official records to old newspaper clippings to "reports" from spurned lovers and former friends. The last, Harry knew from experience to sift heavily for the gold.

First, the undeniable facts: Malfoy ran his own potions supply business, and he did sell a lot of people rare ingredients, or at least ones that were rare in Britain, which they'd otherwise have to collect themselves. Despite numerous investigations by the Ministry when he began, and some anonymous complaints and rumors since then, there was no evidence that he sold anything illegal. That would make proof linking him to dragons' eggs explosive.

Harry paused and ignored Fovea's loud suggestions that if he had a piece of cheese, _she _should have a piece of cheese. _And it makes it all the more likely that it's something someone wants to see happen, instead of something that really did. _He sighed and returned to his reading. He'd dealt with plenty of murky cases in his time, especially when going after someone under official suspicion but not official arrest, but he already knew this would be one of the murkiest.

Malfoy had made donations in the beginning, to St. Mungo's and to a few of the orphanages established after the war, but he'd stopped when the donations were rejected. Harry could hardly blame him for that; he'd done the same thing when it turned out one of the charities he'd chosen didn't want donations from "the son of a Mudblood." It did make him grin faintly when he read some of the more recent articles that claimed Malfoy lived extravagantly and could easily spare some of those Galleons for people who were starving.

The photographs of Malfoy down the years showed him growing more confident. He stopped trying to duck out of frames, as had happened at first, and stared boldly at the camera, or smirked. The few most recent showed a relaxed smile. Harry nodded. He hadn't anticipated less, since many of the people he handled for the Ministry were like this. If it was easy to rattle Malfoy or get information out of him, then the Ministry wouldn't have needed Harry on this case.

After he looked once through the pictures, noting in passing that Malfoy favored pale, cool colors and outdoor settings as well as fancy restaurants, he went back through them again, this time paying attention to the people around Malfoy. Gregory Goyle was there for the first few years, then faded away. Harry found only one picture with Pansy Parkinson in it. Then came a few with Blaise Zabini, standing with his arm around Malfoy's shoulders in a way that made Harry smile wistfully. They looked comfortable with each other. He winced a little for Malfoy when he found the article that said Zabini had betrayed him and tried to sell some of his secrets to another apothecary business. Malfoy looked no more than mildly exasperated in that photo, which made Harry wonder if he had known and allowed Zabini to play on a long line to see what would happen, or if he was just that good at hiding his emotions.

Harry rolled his eyes at himself, then. He couldn't be either too sympathetic or too suspicious at first. He would partially have to wait and see how Malfoy responded to him before he could decide on his strategy.

Still, it was good to know that Malfoy had been betrayed once before. He would be looking out for something like that, then. Harry scanned the photographs once more, noted that none of the dates he had with him-all pretty blonde women with bright green eyes, a hopeful sign-seemed to last more than one article, and finally put the newspapers aside and turned to the personal testimonies.

There were a few from people who had known Lucius Malfoy, tried to renew their contacts with his son after Lucius went to prison, and been rejected. Harry snorted at the terms used in those and shoved them over to join the articles. They were less useful, colored by the old bitterness of the war.

A few more papers proved to contain nothing more useful than notes from reporters who had tried to get inside Malfoy's business and had been escorted off the premises by firm but smiling guards. One piece _did _have a map, but Harry studied the sketch and found it useless. It was only of the outside of the building. He would gain more himself by going on a scouting mission.

_If I have time. And always assuming that Malfoy is foolish enough to keep some of his secrets in his shops instead of in a secure vault at Gringotts._

Harry smiled slightly as he turned the map over and pushed it to the far side of the table. There were plenty of people who weren't that sensible, even the clever ones the Ministry had had trouble finding pretexts to raid. They simply couldn't trust goblin security as much as they trusted themselves, or they had lingering paranoia from the war, and they would keep sensitive information as close as they could.

Harry had made at least five arrests because of those attitudes.

When he reached the next report, he sat up and took note. This one had small, cramped handwriting but a signature that flowed across the page as though the writer had signed his name in water. _Blaise Zabini._

Harry read his way through. Zabini referred to Malfoy as "Lord Malfoy" at all times, which Harry considered as a mode of address and then regretfully decided that he couldn't depend upon; Zabini might have been doing it to mock Malfoy, even if in a way that he would never know about.

Zabini reported that he had dated Malfoy for three months, and tried to learn the names of some of his suppliers in other countries-and how he paid them, apparently a matter of great mystery-so that he could sell them to the competition. He just retold the details with no attempt at concealment, which made Harry have to set the report aside a while so he could pace around the room and relieve the cramps in his legs.

And the impulse that made him want to hunt down Zabini and strangle him.

He halted to pet Fovea, who approved of this by tucking her head against his shoulder and closing her dark eyes. He couldn't go into the job like this. It would show through, that unexpected sympathy, and probably make Malfoy _more _suspicious. Or it would make Harry slower to notice details that he should have.

Malfoy's life had sucked for a while after the war. It sucked to be betrayed by a lover, as Harry should know. But that didn't mean that he was innocent.

_It also doesn't mean that he's guilty, _Harry thought, moving back to his chair at last. Well, maybe he could use this sympathy to balance things. There would be plenty of people on the case-assuming that Robards allowed a bunch of them on it, which of course he would-urging Harry to find some proof that could condemn Malfoy whether or not it actually existed.

Harry wouldn't do that. He might be the Ministry's Whore, the named his enemies called him, but he had never lied about his own honest findings. He could make mistakes; anyone could. The last and most vicious argument he'd had with Neville, and the reason they weren't speaking anymore, had been because Neville thought Harry's entire profession was a mistake, and Harry had been adamant that it wasn't. Now Harry wished that he'd spoken more gently. Proving a point wasn't worth losing a friend.

But Harry could say that he had never made a mistake on purpose, or because of pressure from the Ministry. He sometimes wondered if that was one reason he had chosen this position, and not just because it used his skills or because it had proven too dangerous for him to go into the field as a regular Auror. The Ministry had a few other people it used on jobs like this, but they were entirely too prone, in Harry's opinion, to fuck things up.

_Pun fully intended._

He sighed and went back to Zabini's report. So many things to keep in mind, so many things to balance. He suspected that his own earlier claim of indifference to Malfoy probably wouldn't hold up under scrutiny.

* * *

Harry turned around and looked in his shoulder over the mirror. Then he smiled. Yes, that was perfect.

He looked different from the pale women who had clung to Malfoy's arm in the recent past, but that was part of the point. Harry wanted to be bold and challenging and draw Malfoy in. With some of his targets, he'd acted meek, someone creeping in the shadow of their greatness, willing to be drawn out by them. But Malfoy knew him too well, and he'd always thought that Harry courted his fame. So Harry would stand out among the other people in the restaurant where Malfoy was dining tonight-something announced in the papers for the past week-like a hawk among doves.

He wore royal blue robes, carefully cut to make him appear a trifle shorter than he was. Harry thought he might as well try to appeal to Malfoy's vanity as well as stir up some memories of their Hogwarts days and see how Malfoy responded. They flowed and swirled around him otherwise, which was important. Harry wanted to move gracefully in any dance that resulted, and fast, towards the door, if he needed to.

He was going without his glasses tonight; he'd found a charm that would improve his vision for a few nights at a time. Hermione had urged him to get his eyes fixed permanently, but Harry had rejected the idea. His glasses were too much a part of his iconic image, useful in convincing people that he was (hushed breath) Harry _Potter. _And since his public jumping from bed to bed was supposed to be due to an insatiable sexual appetite instead of his work for the Ministry, he had to play the part.

But he thought Malfoy would want to see his eyes, always his best feature, and the glasses were probably a _bit _too strong a reminder of Hogwarts. For the same reason, Harry had enchanted enough individual strands of his hair that it didn't look too different from usual, while still being subtly presentable. He sometimes put in dark auburn highlights that would show up in strong sun, accenting the red undertone that was there as a gift from his mother, but there would be no point in doing so tonight; the restaurant would be dim.

Harry smiled at himself in the mirror one more time, and then turned and made sure that his wand was in the specially-made holster for it, inside his right sleeve, where he could simply shake it and have it tumble into his hand. A slight stretch off to the side, a casual movement of the kind that he might make half a dozen times during the evening, gave him the reassuring weight of the dagger that was likewise sheathed along his left leg. A turn to the side, and there was the dagger to the right. Then he arched his back, and the band of soft cloth along his shoulders tightened. It was wound with Preserving and Cushioning Charms, and contained several vials of potions that would be useful: Calming Draughts, mild healing potions, even a small vial of Veritaserum.

Harry smiled one more time, this time not at the mirror, and drew his wand so that he could Apparate to the restaurant, called simply Venezia's.

_Show time._


	2. Target Acquired

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two-Target Acquired_

Harry stepped into Venezia's and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust. A series of wooden steps led up into the restaurant proper, the entrance being high and arched and flanked with pillars. Harry glanced at them and managed to refrain from snorting under his breath, which wouldn't fit with the character he was trying to play here. Someone had made those pillars copies of Corinthian columns, but had obviously studied only enough Greek architecture to pick out "curly bits are important."

He faced into the restaurant again, his eyes no longer burning from the sunset, and smiled. The entire place was made of wood, most of it much more expertly carved than the columns at the door. The tables stood under sunbursts on the ceiling above, exactly the shape and size of the tabletops themselves, and silently shining magical beams of light connected the rare windows scattered about. A river ran through the middle of the restaurant, a delicate chattering stream down which trays full of food floated. Those seated near enough to the water could bend over and pluck their food out; servers brought them to the more distant tables. Flowers, including large lilies, grew along the sides of the water. The air was filled with gentle talk and laughter.

As a place to meet a new target, it was better than most Harry had seen.

A man in charcoal-grey robes had appeared unobtrusively at his side while Harry was observing. "Welcome to Venezia's, sir," he murmured. "Do you have a reservation?"

Harry smiled at him. "No. I'll be happy to wait until there's a free table, though."

The man hesitated. He had dark hair that looked as expensive as his robes. "There may not be one this evening, sir, even if someone cancels. There's a waiting list."

Harry shrugged. "No matter. I'll wait." As he turned to the cushioned waiting bench to the left of the door, he made sure to give his head a subtle toss so that the fringe cleared his scar.

The man gabbled. Harry sat down on the bench, arranged himself so that he was comfortable, and looked up. "Is there something wrong?" he asked, managing a puzzled frown without too much trouble.

"N-no." The man bowed, his eyes flocked on Harry's forehead. "Just-Mr. Potter, you should have _said _something."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "I don't want you to kick someone out of their reservation for me."

The man smiled for the first time. "Don't worry, sir. There are people who will consider it an honor and a privilege to be displaced for someone who saved us all from a Dark Lord."

Harry knew that, actually. He had simply wanted to make sure that the staff of Venezia's would choose one of _them_ instead of the first person they saw or the people at the best table. "If you can find someone who doesn't object, please tell them I'll be happy to make it up to them," he said. Sometimes all they wanted was an autograph or a photo; sometimes they wanted to talk to him, tell him their troubles, let a child sit on his lap, or just hold his hand and stare into his eyes for long moments.

Harry had got used to it. It was boring, sure, and sometimes a fan went further than just touching his hand, but, well, he also used his name to help him in his Auror missions. There was a price to be paid for using it.

And if he was around someone truly dangerous, someone adopting the guise of an adoring fan to get close enough to kill him, he could usually sense it. A year of living among the wolves before he decided to go back and finish his education at Hogwarts after all had taught him most of the masks that assassins lurked under. They always did something to betray themselves. No one was perfect.

_A good reminder of what to keep in mind when you go after Malfoy tonight._

The server hurried back with news that a family had been happy to give up their table to Harry, but would Mr. Potter mind posing for a photograph in return? Mr. Potter didn't mind at all, especially when he saw the family. A mother with her two children, the older of them a ten-year-old girl off to Hogwarts next year. Who knew what her future would have been, or if she would have been born at all, if the war hadn't ended when it did?

A lot of other people seemed determined to forget about the war as soon as possible. Harry never would.

Photograph snapped, hands shaken, token advice dispensed, Harry made his way to the free table. It was right next to the stream, and he sat down on a chair that promptly molded itself to fit him. Harry smiled and shifted a bit so that it wasn't pressing the daggers he wore to the skin of his legs. That would have been uncomfortable. When the first server from an awed, whispering little group made her way over to him, Harry ordered a claret and leaned back in his seat, watching the restaurant chatter and circle around him.

He was glad that Malfoy had the level of wealth and influence he did, because the people in Venezia's only stared at him a little; their own lives and their own courtesies forbade them to do more. Harry had to fend off one overly-polite offer to buy his dinner, but he managed to send the man who wanted to do that away with a smile on his face. His steak arrived in good time, and Harry divided his attention between it and his drink, making it seem as though he was wholly absorbed. He'd had lots of practice at that.

He knew when Malfoy arrived, of course, because of the small mirror he'd placed beside the plate. But the noise level in Venezia's didn't appreciably change to warn him, and Harry knew Malfoy would have sensed perception-altering magic if he cast it. That meant he was able to start and turn around in his seat as if it was some mystical sense of Malfoy's presence that alerted him.

Malfoy stood in the center of the doorway, posed in such a way that Harry had to fight back a smile of appreciation. No one wanted to snap pictures of him at the moment, it seemed, but he was perfectly framed so that someone _could. _He was listening to the wizard speaking to him with utmost courtesy. At his side stood yet another tall blonde witch with green eyes, who hunched her shoulders a little as if intimidated by Venezia's atmosphere.

Harry had studied his face in the newspaper photographs, but Malfoy's features in life were something else again. His skin had the pallor of a fine piece of porcelain, the pointy features he'd had when he was a schoolboy subsumed but not gone. Harry was fairly sure that they could emerge when he wanted to sneer, though. His hair was fine, soft as dandelion fluff, and a white-blond that Harry knew at a glance wasn't natural. His eyes dominated his face, a deeper grey than Harry remembered, but still shades lighter than the dove-grey robes he wore. When he moved, Harry caught a glimpse of navy blue beneath the robes.

Harry waited until the moment Malfoy turned away from the server and glanced across the restaurant. He might have been searching for friends, companions, business associates, enemies.

What he found was Harry.

Harry let their eyes meet, let his own face express whatever it wanted to at the moment-he knew there would be shock in there and some appreciation, at least-and then turned back to his meal. He refused to do it hastily. He wouldn't let Malfoy frighten or intimidate him.

Or that was the message he had to send, at least.

Now he really did have a sense of Malfoy, the man's gaze prickling along his neck, his back, his shoulders, as he and his date moved past Harry to take a place at another table further down the stream-bank. Malfoy stepped around the table to hold the chair out for his date, and thus could look right into Harry's eyes. Harry stared back at him, long enough for the air between them to acquire a charge, the stare to turn uncomfortable.

Malfoy didn't turn away, didn't look as though he wanted to.

_Interesting. _Harry toasted him with the glass of claret and turned back to his dinner. The steak was exquisite, tender enough to break apart on the fork and warmed by a special spell on the plate beneath it. Harry half-closed his eyes as he ate. He would have to make sure that he came back to Venezia's when he wasn't on the hunt.

He was satisfied with his progress for the evening. If Malfoy hadn't shown up with a date, he would have tried to push further, but there was only so much that he could do in front of a witch Malfoy would need to show attention and courtesy to. If Robards tried to needle Harry on it, all Harry had to do was ask sweetly how his own spies were coming along.

"Mr. Potter."

It was the man who had seated him, hovering nervously to the side. Harry looked up at him with a smile. "Yes?" he asked, and then saw that the wizard held another glass of claret. He shook his head. "I didn't order that."

"Yes, but-" The man licked his lips and gave Harry the wretched look of someone caught between two equally powerful beings. Harry knew it well. The Aurors who worked directly for Robards sometimes had those expressions when Harry wanted to question something they were doing. "Mr. Malfoy's compliments."

_Oh. Even more interesting. _"In that case..." Harry accepted the glass and looked across the distance between their tables. "Thank you," he said, keeping it soft enough that there was no way Malfoy could have heard, but also keeping his eyes locked on Malfoy's eyes.

He heard the server beat a hasty retreat. Harry didn't see any need to be hasty himself. He took a few lazy sips and showed some real emotions: admiration for the way that Malfoy looked, equal admiration for the way that he had raised himself to a high position from dust and ashes after the war, interest, curiosity, and half-playfulness. _Whatever you intend with this gesture, it won't be what you're sure you'll succeed at._

Malfoy stared back at him, eyes dark. Then his mouth curved in a slow, contented smile that reminded Harry of a cheetah stalking prey across the savannah.

Of course, a cheetah only got so close before it took down the prey in a burst of speed.

_Do you have the stamina? _Harry thought, lounging back on his chair and looking elsewhere only when Malfoy did, turning his head in response to some question from his date. _Because I have the speed._

* * *

"I hoped to hear something more than _that_, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes and toweled himself dry, hooking the towel around his waist when he was done. Once again, Robards had called not long after he'd got out of the shower, and this time, Harry had decided not to hurry to dress, just to make Robards's day that much more uncomfortable. "You've heard what I had to report. I had thought Malfoy might be showing up alone, and I would have moved faster in that case. But, sir, tipping my hand to him would be a lot more disastrous than not acquiring the proof of a crime that might not have happened."

Robards opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Fovea's screech from the aviary. He stopped, looking annoyed, for as long as it took her to scream, which was nearly a minute. Harry smiled unrepentantly at him. _That's what you get for firecalling me before I can feed my cockatoo breakfast._

"You have to understand," Robards said, and lowered his voice as though afraid that someone behind him was listening, which wouldn't have surprised Harry. "This is the one chance that we might have to convict Malfoy. In general, he pays his people so well that none of them will turn on him. He couldn't have anticipated that someone would survive the dragons' eggs and do so in fear of his life."

Harry cocked his head. "What are you saying?"

"That this is your one chance," Robards said. "_Our _one chance. You have to find whatever you can. You have to act as quickly as possible. Do that however you have to, I don't care. Convince Malfoy that you were in danger of dying of desire for him even before this." His mouth quirked to the side in disgust, and Harry snorted. _If he hates what I do that much, he shouldn't have hired me to do it. _"Or let him think he's taking advantage of you. But we have to have that proof."

"Sir." Harry kept his voice quiet and utterly respectful. "Even if it turns out that the proof shows he never committed a crime?"

"No one becomes as good as he has by not committing a crime," Robards said. "Or as powerful and successful. Even you, Potter, ought to know that. You're not exactly walking around in the light, and you've had a lot of success."

Harry stared at him. He took in the flush of Robards's cheeks, the way his hands gripped something Harry couldn't see but which was most probably a sheaf of parchment, the way he leaned forwards as if he thought that he could find a perfect angle of his body that would be most compelling to Harry.

_He has a personal stake in this. He wants Malfoy taken down whether or not he's guilty. _

That changed the game. Harry inclined his head. "All right. I'll find out what I can."

"And what's there, Potter. I know you. You always do." Robards opened his mouth as if to say something more, then jerked his head and stepped back from the Floo. It closed. Harry stood there looking at the ordinary flames in silence for a moment, ignoring the way that Fovea was now performing a war-dance on her perch, from the sounds of it, and threatening direly bitten fingers if she didn't get what she wanted five minutes ago.

_I have to act fast so as to satisfy Robards. But that means that I'll probably warn Malfoy along the way, or not turn up what I'm looking for, because by the time I get there he'll have destroyed or hidden it. Or it doesn't exist in the first place, and this is all a delusional case because the Head Auror has a grudge against Malfoy._

Harry shrugged. _So I play one game on the surface and another beneath it. I've done harder things._

_Though not often. _

There was a loud smash, which probably meant Fovea had succeeded in tipping her ceramic bowl out of its holder. Harry rolled his eyes and went to attend to the other impatient, clucking presence in his life. At least she would coo nicely when he petted her.

Thinking of Robards's reaction if Harry was to offer that to him made him laugh aloud, and after that, things went a little more easily.

* * *

"You want to speak to Mr. Malfoy?" The undersecretary's voice wavered as she stared at Harry. She was a tall woman, with white hair whose stern lines reminded Harry of McGonagall, but she seemed overawed by the sight of someone famous appearing in her patron's office.

"When it's convenient for him," Harry said. "If it isn't convenient today, then I can come back tomorrow."

He frowned at the floor, though, and gave the undersecretary an apologetic smile. She squeaked and turned hastily to the speaking tube on her desk. Harry sat down on the bench in front of her-comfortable but not as comfortable as it could have been; Malfoy didn't want to encourage people to wait for him-and, while apparently keeping his eyes focused ahead, on the wall behind the undersecretary's desk, studied the office.

A bland space, a blank one. The walls were crowded with portraits of potions, shining vials and cauldrons and a few that contained what were apparently Malfoy's employees lifting a cup of them to their lips, but Harry had already noticed that there was no way to link the potions to descriptions. They were simply rich red or blue or green liquids, unless you were a Potions master. And Malfoy's business was the supply of ingredients, raw and otherwise, not the production of completed potions. This office was meant to dazzle while not revealing the fact that it revealed nothing about Malfoy's business.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He would have expected price lists, at least. But Malfoy must know what he was doing, to have a business as successful as the one he operated. Or perhaps his main clients were rich enough that they could pay any price worth the asking.

"Mr. Malfoy will see you."

Harry smiled at the undersecretary and rose to his feet, while his brain exploded into furious buzzing. He really had expected Malfoy to refuse, especially with the heightened paranoia that had to have infected him once Zabini, a lover and friend, had betrayed him. This had been more in the nature of a scouting mission, as well as a token to show Robards.

If Malfoy was willing to see him...

Harry shrugged mentally as he followed her directions down a richly-paneled and carpeted corridor. He had ridden the shifting waves of more situations than this one, played more than one game with people who were smart and wary and had practice in concealing their secrets. He would have to keep an eye on his own irritation with Robards and his unexpected sympathy for Malfoy when he was studying the newspaper articles; either emotion could hurry him into hasty conclusions. But he didn't fear drowning.

_You don't, once you learn how to swim._

"Potter. I _am _sorry to have kept you waiting."

Harry had to smile again as he stood and held out his hand for Malfoy to shake. _No, you aren't, you bastard. You knew exactly what you were doing. _

He'd spent the last half-an-hour in Malfoy's exquisitely designed office, with its huge birch wood desk and lamps of white gold, as much a mask as the outer one was. Harry had learned the colors of the carpet by heart, and never shifted from the chair he sat in, although it had shifted itself according to a subtle spell every ten minutes, silently encouraging him to stand.

He had learned other things, too. The wait comforted him a bit; as well as telling him that Malfoy still enjoyed the exercise of petty power, it also indicated that Malfoy had no idea who or what Harry really was. He wouldn't have left Harry alone with the opportunity to think and gather more details about him otherwise.

"Hullo, Malfoy," Harry said. "Don't mind. Showing up in the middle of the day had to be an inconvenience for you."

Malfoy gave him a thin smile as he took his hand. His skin was warmer than Harry expected, his fingers just as long and slender. Today he was wearing a pale shade of blue that seemed to bring out blue undertones in his grey eyes. Harry approved. Malfoy had learned how to accent his own beauty, probably when he grew into it.

"What have you come to see me about?" Malfoy sat down with careless grace behind the desk and motioned Harry to take the chair again. Harry noted with silent amusement that the contours of the chair had turned perfectly comfortable this time. "It must be urgent. I can't imagine that you have much use for potions ingredients in your own right, unless your talent has grown considerably since Hogwarts."

Harry grinned at him. "Nope. I didn't blow up the lab on my last try, but it was only because I'd added so many inert ingredients together that the potion would have caused some damage in about, oh, fifty years."

Malfoy's lips twitched, and his eyebrows rose. "You've acquired a sense of humor about your own failures, at least," he said. "But I notice that you haven't answered the question."

Harry nodded. "There are a few potions ingredients that I'd like to buy as gifts for Hermione, as a matter of fact, but I wouldn't expect you to attend to that personally." He met Malfoy's eyes head-on and dropped the teasing humor, summoning the intensity that he'd used the other night. Malfoy blinked at him, lips parting slightly, before his eyelids slid down over his eyes and his face acquired the bright neutrality again. "This is about what happened in Venezia's."

"So dissatisfied that I bought a drink for you?" Malfoy murmured, the edge of a snap to his voice. "Well. That will make sure I don't do again. I prefer to dispense my gifts to the grateful."

"I didn't know that I wanted to be grateful," Harry said. "I hadn't seen you face-to-face in Merlin knows how long. But-Malfoy, God, I haven't felt a kick like that in years." And that much was true. Harry enjoyed sex and flirting both, but the tension coiled in his stomach last night has been something else, a dark, sucking power that made his thighs tighten as he thought about it. "I was wondering if you would consider going on a date with me."

Malfoy touched his hand to his heart in a parody of a fainting virgin's gesture. "You ask people _out _before you trip them into bed?"

"Not often," Harry admitted cheerfully. "A lot of people are overwhelmed that I'm offering and pleased to go along with little more than a touch on the arm. But I can already tell that you'll need more than that." He refused to look away this time, even as the darkness in Malfoy's eyes and face both deepened.

"I've heard about the way you hop from bed to bed," Malfoy said, when enough silence had passed between them that Harry felt as though the sparks were burning his skin. "Why would I want that for myself? I enjoy faithfulness."

Harry shrugged. "I can say that I've always been faithful to my lovers while I was with them. Hermione calls it serial monogamy."

"Still need Granger to do your thinking for you?" Malfoy crossed his legs, tilted his head downwards the tiniest amount. Harry kept himself from blinking with an effort. _He's thinking about it. I wonder why? This wasn't supposed to work._

"No," Harry said. "But I'd be stupid to call it, oh, 'consequences of my abusive childhood manifesting in a desperate search for parental figures' when I have another, ready-made name."

Malfoy choked out a laugh, and shook his head. "It's been weeks since any of my dates made me laugh," he murmured. "And I do enjoy a challenge in the evenings that's a bit different from the challenge of making sure the numbers add up right and my suppliers contact me on time."

Harry held his breath, and held his gaze, and said nothing. The heat was spreading up his stomach again, stiffening his muscles, making his mouth dry out so that his heart could beat there.

"Yes," Malfoy said. "For one date. And with no guarantee that there'll be more, or that we'll sleep together. I'll choose the time and place." He showed his teeth in a way that reminded Harry, again, of the cheetah stalking its prey. "And if I hear of you going out with someone between now and then, the date's off, and your life is going to become hell in ways that you can't imagine."

Harry stood up and bowed. "You don't need to worry about that," he said. "I want you more than I've wanted someone in a long time. I'd be an idiot to screw up my chances, and I'm not."

"No, you're not, are you," Malfoy said, his eyes darker than ever as they lingered on Harry.

Acting on the instinct of the moment, Harry reached out and took Malfoy's left hand that lay on the desk, lifting it to his mouth. "May I?" he asked, his lips moving just above the warm skin.

Malfoy's fingers clenched once, a slight spasm, before he nodded. Harry kissed him with breath and the tip of his tongue more than lips, then gave him back his hand and let his heat flood his eyes as he stared.

Malfoy's flush showed only on the tips of his ears and in his glittering eyes, but it was there. Harry inclined his head again and swept out of the office.

_This is going to be _fun.


	3. Tactics Chosen

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three-Tactics Chosen_

"Rose is about to go on a flight," Harry said confidentially, his nose a few inches from Rose's. "Isn't she?"

Rose giggled at him, but she was trying to smother the giggles. She seemed to be Hermione's daughter to the extent that she _wanted _to be solemn and follow the rules about not making too noise, but her real personality kept breaking out at the edges.

"Yes, she is," Harry continued, in the same calm, normal, nice, easy voice. "And she's about to do it _now!"_

He tossed her up, nearly to the ceiling, and Rose flailed her arms and legs and screamed in delight. Harry whirled around beneath her, holding his hands up, and she dropped neatly into them and buried her head in his chest, giggling now without restraint. Harry laughed and tickled her along the sides to rouse more laughter, although he didn't think she was very ticklish yet.

"My heart half-stops every time you do that, mate," Ron commented from the door of the drawing room.

Harry grinned at him over his shoulder. "Really? Even though you know I've never failed to catch her?" He put Rose back on the floor, and she promptly toddled over and brought him back a rubber brick. Harry nodded and examined it gravely, then gave it back for her to add to a pile of them.

"Yeah," Ron said. "I trust you, mate, but sometimes you see someone in flight like that and you just _can't _be sure that they're going to land safely, you know?"

Harry knew he was talking about more than just Harry tossing Rose in the air. He caught Ron's eye and nodded. "Yeah, I know," he said. "But when someone's older than Rose and they've chosen to make their own leap and they're sure they can control the landing, then you just have to stand back and let them do it."

Ron stared at him, then cracked a reluctant smile and nodded back. "You're right," he said. "If that person ever wants help changing the path of his flight, though, he just has to ask."

"He knows," Harry said, and his hand rested hard enough on Ron's shoulder for a moment that Ron actually winced. "Believe me, he knows."

Ron picked up Rose, shook her back and forth for a second in the way she liked, and then took her into the kitchen, where Hermione was making breakfast, a chore that she and Ron traded. Harry followed.

Hermione looked up from the pan of eggs she'd enchanted to fry themselves, and from the large book that lay on the counter in front of her and which Harry knew was her real focus of attention. Hermione and Ron had a rule: no books at the table or in the bedroom. But the rules said nothing about books at the kitchen counter, in the drawing room, in the bathroom, or basically everywhere else, and so Hermione got around the corners that way to continue studying for her solicitor's exam.

"Harry," she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "You came to have breakfast with us?"

"If there's room for one more." Harry dropped into place at the round wooden table scrubbed to a bright shine, a present from Hermione's parents. He had given up on offering to help with the food after Hermione had taken that as an insult to her household charms. Ron would accept help gladly, which was one reason that Harry usually tried to come over on the mornings that Hermione was cooking.

"Always," Hermione said, and turned around and gave him a warm, exasperated look that seemed to have been a present from Molly.

Harry shrugged and grinned back at her. He and Hermione had had their share of disagreements about his chosen career, sure. But it had never escalated to the level of personal insults, which was the main reason that Neville wasn't speaking to him. She had simply force-fed Harry psychology, complaining gently that he wasn't treating himself right if he thought he had to have sex to be worth anything. That would be the part where Harry told her that he didn't think _that_, but that he would never be "normal," given his notoriety. Rather than trying to do something where that notoriety was a hindrance and could actually hurt other people-which had happened when he was trying to be a "normal" Auror-he could parley that into ultimate gains for the process of justice, and have a lot of fun at the same time.

Harry _liked _having sex, and didn't actually get to do it as often as his reputation would suggest. After all, some of the time he had to be home writing reports and studying his targets and making sure that Fovea didn't die of not having a human servant to lord it over. And other times he seduced but didn't get all the way to bed. He'd chosen the way he lived as one that would answer most of his needs, the need to be with people and the need to help them, and it seemed to be working.

Ron had been bewildered for a while, then upset, when Hermione had convinced him that Harry was doing it because of his childhood. But he had come around. What was important to him was that Harry was his friend, and that he was happy. Since both were still true, he didn't spend a lot of time worrying about Harry or hinting that he could be different.

Hermione turned around with the pan full of eggs and dashed them neatly onto the plates, followed by toast that she'd set cooking a short time before. Then came the jars of marmalade and a whole plate of butter, floating over by themselves from the fridge, and the pumpkin juice that Ron still favored and the special milk that Rose had to have and tea for Harry and Hermione. Harry gathered in his tea and closed his eyes while he sipped.

Hermione was waiting anxiously for his verdict when he opened his eyes. She always did. Harry grinned at her. "I'm looking for a word," he said. "What's the word? Oh, yeah..._perfect_."

"Arsehole," Hermione muttered, and then looked humiliated when Rose cooed and waved her hands. "It's her uncles, is what it is," she said hastily, and started eating.

Harry snickered at her behind his hand. Of course Hermione would be mortified that her daughter was picking up bad language from her, which wasn't enough to stop her from using it before she remembered.

Hermione shook her head and struck out for the "higher moral ground" that most parents among Harry's friends seemed to find sooner or later. "And when are you going to have children, Harry?"

"When I find a man or a woman who wants them, too," Harry said.

Hermione sighed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Who are you dating now? Any new prospects?"

"Actually," Harry said, drawing out the word as he watched both Ron and Hermione pick up their cups, "sometime soon I'm going on a date with Draco Malfoy."

He timed it for maximum effectiveness, so that both pumpkin juice and tea sprayed across the table.

* * *

"I need you to get _moving _on this, Potter."

"Sure, Head Auror," Harry said absently, without looking up from the stack of newspaper clippings about Malfoy that he was revising. He knew that not meeting his eyes while they talked drove Robards mad, but the real reason he couldn't look up was that Fovea was sitting on the back of his couch, over to the side, out of Robards's line of sight. She was jumping back and forth excitedly along the couch, flaring her yellow crest up and down and spreading her wings out. She stopped and struck a dramatic pose whenever Robards spoke, then carried on with her dancing. Harry would burst out laughing if he caught more than a glimpse, he knew he would. "I have a date."

"When is it?"

"I don't know. He's setting it."

"_Look_ at me when I'm talking to you, Potter!"

Harry looked up, just as Fovea swept her head down in a curve to the right and bobbed it up and down forcefully several times. Harry closed his eyes and pinched his lips firmly together, denying the giggles that bubbled in his throat like boiling water.

"Something funny, Potter?"

"No, sir," Harry said, and he thought his voice was appropriately strangled. "I'm feeling a bit sick, that's all." He went back to holding his mouth closed as Fovea turned around, pointed her tail at the fireplace, and wriggled it disdainfully.

"You have to make sure that you're feeling better by the time Malfoy contacts you," Robards hissed. "And you have to do it soon."

There was more in the same line of shit, which Harry didn't pay much attention to. He was too busy considering what he should wear for the date with Malfoy. Green, to emphasize his eyes? Red? Or would that convey too much of the "Gryffindor" mentality, perhaps even remind Malfoy of Auror robes? It was an important decision, and not just because Harry didn't want to antagonize Malfoy and frighten him off. He'd told Malfoy the truth about the kick of heat in his belly, after all.

"Potter, are you _listening_ to me?"

"Yes," Harry said, without looking up. "And you can't set guards on the date, and you can't specify questions that I can ask him. Sir, I know what I'm doing. I wouldn't have managed so many arrests if I didn't. But it's going to be damaged if you _insist _on doing something to damage it." He looked up then and hit Robards with a stare that made him hesitate, at least a little. "Do you want evidence that holds up in a trial, or evidence brought in badly-mangled?"

"I'm worried about what you might do without consulting me," Robards muttered, but at least he sounded as though he was calming down.

Harry shook his head impatiently. "This is my job. Take it away from me and give it to someone else, if you don't want me to handle it. But if you leave it with me, then I have to continue as I began, or Malfoy will be suspicious."

Robards muttered some kind of agreement and shut down the Floo call. Harry continued watching the fireplace for a moment, trying to smile, but he knew his eyes and face were both hard. He had to consider Robards a dangerous enemy, not because of any magical skill or intelligence but simply because of the sway he had in the Department as Head Auror. That meant he might get in Harry's way without telling Harry he was doing it.

Robards usually wasn't like this. Although he worked Harry too hard, and made snide comments, he was willing to step back and let Harry do what was needed to ascertain someone's guilt or innocence. Harry feared that he was different this time only because of his personal investment in bringing Malfoy down.

Which meant that he might easily interfere, under the impression that he was doing good.

Harry would have to watch.

His hard look faded a moment later, when Fovea flew over to the mantle, crouched down and shook herself, and shat all over the hearthstone. Harry laughed and held out his hand, and she flew to him, dancing triumphantly up and down his arm, singing _Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!_ as though she had just defeated an invading army.

"Yeah," Harry told her, scratching down her neck as she closed her eyes in bliss, "I'd like to see the army that could keep going through a rain of cockatoo shit."

* * *

"Interesting robes that you chose, Potter."

Harry grinned. He'd gone with the scarlet robes after all, knowing they would provoke a reaction from Malfoy but deciding that he probably needed the reaction. They couldn't avoid their history forever. "Interesting place you've chosen to eat," he retorted, and slid into the seat across from Malfoy's.

Malfoy leaned back in his chair and looked at Harry with the same intensity he'd showed in his office. Harry looked back at him, never losing his smile. It would take far more than Malfoy to make him do _that_.

Because Malfoy didn't seem inclined to conversation right now, though, Harry took the chance to look around the room. It was the inner chamber of the restaurant; he'd had to pass through three others to get here. They were all egg-shaped, though the walls only swooped down in a breathless way near the doors. This one was blazing blue, the sapphire color of the walls and ceiling nearly painful to the eye. Harry especially enjoyed looking at the floor. The blue made him feel as though the table was floating atop a glassy pool of water, covered with transparent ice.

The designs on the walls, carved or chipped into the faceted sapphire (if it was sapphire) itself, also made Harry stare in appreciation, and not just because of the delicacy of art visible in those curve-necked swans, and flowing fish, and leaping dolphins. They contained defensive wards, the telltalle blue lines hidden by the general color of the walls.

And their table was the only one in the room, sprawling languidly along one wall. They were seated close to each other, a fact Harry was privately grateful for, and the food occupied the rest of the table. The servers began to bring it to them the moment Harry was seated, the first course a soup that didn't steam. Harry peered at it and found out it was gazpacho. He did a private toast to Malfoy's taste with his wineglass and began to eat.

"The robes you were last time would have made a better complement to the room," Malfoy said, when they had been eating peacefully for three minutes.

Harry toasted him this time and made sure that he had swallowed all the gazpacho before he spoke. "I'm sorry. The next time, owl me with the details of your private restaurant decorating scheme, and I'll make sure that I take them into account."

Malfoy leaned back in his chair, fingers wrapped around the stem of his glass, and stared at him over the rim of it. Harry hadn't seen him take a single drink yet. Cautious, curious. Harry would have to hope that the curiosity could overcome the caution. "You're very confident, aren't you," Malfoy said.

Harry ate silently, and then smiled in the moment before he knew Malfoy would have burst out with something. "I'm sorry, was that a question? I leave declarative statements alone. That's a lesson that the _Prophet _reporters took hard when I first taught it to them, but I think you're more intelligent."

Slow amusement crossed Malfoy's face, with behind it the look of a watching predator. Harry shivered and took a sip of his soup to hide his face. That had not been the response he would have expected.

"Tell me," Malfoy said, "in detail, what you'd like to do to me." Now he put his wineglass away and lifted a calm hand, signaling the servers forward. They had a platter of fish, Harry saw, the scales carefully arranged on top of the flesh and gleaming so brightly silver that they looked artificial. At a whisk of the lead server's wand, the scales flew away and left the shining fish beneath.

_Appropriate. _From the way Malfoy was staring at Harry, he would have enjoyed stripping him in much the same way.

"With this audience?" Harry asked. He would accept the challenge Malfoy seemed intent on tossing him if Malfoy meant it, but he wanted to make sure that Malfoy understood all the nuances of his request.

"Of course." Malfoy looked at the servers and turned back to Harry, dismissing them from existence. "They won't tell anyone."

Harry sat up and gave him a hard smile. _You think you can frighten me? _He licked his lips and spent a moment making sure his voice was at maximum huskiness.

"I'd like to begin with arranging you," he said. "Laying you back on your bed, undressing you so slowly that your limbs seem to flow and melt like water, until you're relaxed and yet so excited that your breath is coming fast and your hair stands on end." Malfoy stared at him, and Harry nodded, took a bite of his fish, and closed his eyes as the taste of marlin burst over his tongue. When he looked back, Malfoy had a faint frown on his face, as if he didn't think much of Harry eating in the middle of the conversation-or monologue.

Well, so be it, then. Harry pushed the fish aside for the moment and continued speaking at a slightly lower level, though not so low that the waiters couldn't hear if they wanted to. Malfoy was the one who had chosen this. "I'm good with my hands. I'd start out with your face. I don't think many people dare to touch you there, do they? Probably afraid of being cut, or slapped aside, or flinched away from. I'd begin behind your ears, rubbing the skin there. It's delicate. I like tracing it, watching the flush begin.

"I'd work my way forwards soon, stroking up and down your cheeks, but spending a lot of my time on your chin. Most people have more sensitive chins than they give themselves credit for. And I think I'd enjoy touching yours." Malfoy had no stubble at all, as though he had cast spells that ensured he wouldn't grow it. Well, perhaps he had. Harry could work with that as well as with men who had some. "But I'd spend a lot of time on your eyelids. Press them closed at first, and they'd flutter. But I'd hum in your ear and ask you to trust me, and sooner or later you would, as the time passed and I didn't hurt you. That's all I can ask for."

"Most of my lovers would ask for considerably more than that," Malfoy said in a hoarse voice.

He was trying to break the mood. Harry smiled at him and didn't let him. "Your throat next. I love learning how hard I can bite before I make someone whimper." He paused, watching the way that Malfoy's chest traveled up and down beneath the pale robes he had chosen for tonight, so light that Harry found it hard to determine what color they were. Not the best look on him, he thought. Perhaps they were meant for the surroundings of his office rather than this place. "You'd grunt, though, I think. Trying to deny yourself to me. Keeping your lips shut, your head turned away as much as possible. But I'd coax you back around, and we'd kiss for the first time.

"I've imagined that several times now." Of course he had, especially during one spectacular wank this morning that he'd luckily finished before Robards interrupted him. Harry felt the heat rising in his groin as he spoke, which was all right. He knew the way it affected him, and it was nothing he couldn't handle. "You'll kiss forcefully, I think, urgently, determined to show me how much you don't want this. But I'll only pull back if you do that, and keep my tongue lazily in play until you relax. Then it'll be slow, learning your taste. I've had lovers with a different taste in every corner of their mouths. I want to see if you fit that category. Dark, coppery, salty, merely warm, sweet...I can't decide which taste fits you best. Or which combination. I hope that I'll be able to settle my curiosity soon enough." He sipped his wine this time and carried on smiling at Malfoy, letting it all bleed through, the challenge and his delight in the challenge and his own flung gauntlet to Malfoy and his honest desire, because he wanted Malfoy and he knew it made him beautiful.

Malfoy made a small noise, and then looked furious at himself for having made even that. Harry nodded. He knew how that could be. Malfoy would have a stronger tendency, after Zabini, to be guarded, and to hate himself if he was not. Harry had lingered in that untrusting hell for nearly six months after the first time that someone close had betrayed him-a Ministry flunky who had pretended to be a friend and then scurried away to sell someone Harry's secrets-before he accepted that he couldn't judge every situation correctly and therefore he would just have to put up with being wrong some of the time.

"You have no idea who I am, what I like," Malfoy said, and pushed his fish around on his plate with the tines of his fork. "This is all...adapted. Something that you might say to almost anyone." He looked ill, though, flushing with red that only made it clearer than ever how bad his pale robes looked on him. He seized his glass and took a reckless swallow of wine.

"Yes, I do," Harry said. "I can see the way you move. I can understand something of the way you have to protect yourself, because there are people who would try to take advantage of you."

"Including you?"

Harry met his eyes. "That would depend entirely on what you like in the bedroom," he said calmly. "Since that's all you'll let me be interested in at the moment."

"_Let _you," Malfoy sneered. He was remembering something of his composure, it seemed. That was all right. Harry would make it scatter again soon enough. "You can want more than that."

"But if I said I did, you would sneer and call me weak." Harry shrugged and ate a little more of his marlin. "I prefer not to be insulted. You're beautiful, though, and you know it. That means that physical compliments are safer territory for you. And so is a lover who demands nothing more than use of your body."

Malfoy met his eyes. There was a desperate flash in his, something Harry had seen many times before. The gazelle started before the hunter. The fish on the line. Yearning to escape, fighting for life, but knowing it might not happen.

Harry smiled slowly back, and continued eating.

Malfoy closed his eyes. The flush had died from his face, but moved to his throat. Harry found it fascinating, all the different ways he could blush. "You'd want to fuck me, I suppose," he said. "If you had continued with that speech you were making."

"I want to touch you," Harry said. "And go with what the moment and my leanings and yours tell me. Sometimes I prefer to fuck, sometimes to be fucked."

Malfoy opened his eyes again, and the sneer Harry hadn't wanted to see was on his face. "People like you," he said. "People who claim that everything is fine, that they don't have any preferences. You don't exist."

_Zabini was one, _Harry completed the sentence silently. "I am one," he said. "But there are times that I have pretty strong preferences, it's true. With one bloke, I preferred to fuck him because it felt bloody good, but also because he had no _idea _where my prostate was. I fucking cast a spell on the end of his cock that should have guided him, and he still couldn't reach it."

Malfoy broke out laughing, and then looked as startled as Harry that he had. He drank more wine to cover it up and dragged his plate towards him. Harry studied him curiously. It seemed that simply laughing had relaxed him, which Harry thought was unusual, but supposed was possible.

"Let's see where the rest of the evening goes," Malfoy said. He was toying with the stem of his glass again, but his eyes were clear, and that desperation was gone from them, leaving only the flash of the struggle. "I might enjoy you-touching me."

Harry toasted him the way he had in Venezia's, his own pulse high and hot and hard and hammering. _I want him. This is going to be more than fun._

_ This is going to be a positive pleasure. _


	4. Tactics Used

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four-Tactics Used_

When they left the restaurant, Harry didn't know what would happen next. Malfoy had watched him with a cool, considering glance for most of their conversation after Harry had described the way he'd like to touch him, but that could mean anything. It could mean that he'd decided Harry was worth taking the risk to invite back to his bed, and it could mean that he'd decided against that, and it could mean that he'd seen through the whole act and knew that Harry was nothing but the Ministry's Whore.

Harry started a little when that thought came to him. He'd never thought of his own profession with such viciousness before.

_Well, usually I'm sent to seduce someone where I'm more certain of their guilt, or I don't like them so much._

That thought did shame him, because if he liked his life and liked sex the way he told Ron and Hermione he did, then he ought to be professional about it and let his emotions stop getting in the way. He turned and held his hand out to Malfoy with a temperate smile. "Thank you for dinner," he said. "It was nice seeing you."

Malfoy's eyes flashed, for a moment, with emotions that Harry would have had a hard time trying to define. Then he seized on Harry's hand and hauled him closer. Harry tried not to gasp as he stumbled in. Malfoy wrapped an arm around Harry's waist and placed his mouth directly on his ear, tongue flickering out to stroke along the lobe.

"Did you think that I was going to let you get away with that?" he whispered. "Teasing me, taunting me, _tempting _me, and then you just walk away?"

Harry closed his eyes. He knew that Malfoy would feel his heartbeat breaking into high gear, this close, and that he could feel Harry's hardness. Harry had learned to lie in some ways, to encourage his body into arousal when it didn't feel it, but he hadn't learned to damp desire when he _did _feel it.

"I hadn't known," he said, turning his head in return and letting his nose graze Malfoy's neck. Malfoy shivered in delight, and Harry smiled and rested his hand on the small of Malfoy's back. "I didn't _know _that you would want me to do this, at all. Are you sure that you wouldn't rather wait?" He thought he might, and so the words were there to give himself as well as Malfoy an out.

Malfoy pulled away, staring him in the eye. "You don't really want me," he said. "I thought you didn't."

Harry hissed under his breath. "I want to suck you off right here, and I would if we didn't have to worry about people coming out of the restaurant." Saying that, despite the flush it brought to his cheeks, was worth it for the darkening of Malfoy's eyes. "But I thought you would rather wait, yes."

Malfoy's hand clamped down, hard, as though he assumed that there was nothing else they could do if they didn't do that. Then he shook his head and pulled back, eyes wide and dark and simmering with something that might have been lightning. "Come home with me."

Harry swayed. He felt as though he were caught in a wind or a tide, and it was sweeping him off his feet. He hadn't felt this way since his first experience of real desire, when the partner he was dancing with at the Ministry in the first celebration after the war had looked him in the eye and whispered an obscene suggestion.

Of course, that had ended with betrayal. Harry tried to remind himself of that, as well as that Malfoy was just coming out of a bad relationship too, by shaking his head and saying with all the calmness he could muster, "I don't want you to regret this in the morning, and I think you might."

"All talk," Malfoy said, his smile like a knife. "All for other people. I _thought _that was the way of it."

Harry narrowed his eyes, and for a moment balanced the fact that he had advanced faster and further than he'd thought and might be able to keep to Robards's schedule after all against the fact that he didn't want to betray Malfoy. Plus there was the fact that he wanted Malfoy, but he wasn't sure what side that weighed in on; sometimes it seemed to be one, sometimes the other.

"If you really want me," Malfoy said, moving a step away and turning to the side as though he assumed Harry would be enchanted with the brief glimpse of bare flesh that that provided, "then you'll follow me wherever I go, and an invitation back to my house shouldn't be that big an obstacle for you."

There was something false, something off, about his words. Harry shook his head and stepped back. "You don't want this," he said, quietly sure. "You've had too much to drink, or this is a test, and I fail if I respond just as much as if I refuse. I hope that you had a good time tonight, Malfoy, and that you wank and think of me. I'll wank and think of you." He bowed to Malfoy and turned around.

Malfoy's arms slid around his waist, and his tongue grazed Harry's ear again. Harry closed his eyes and stood still, not so much because he wanted to as because Apparating in this state would be criminally stupid.

"I do want you," Malfoy said. "But more, I want to see if you can rise to the challenge. You're proving yourself just as shallow and cowardly as I always thought you were, if you can't." His tongue was a hot, sliding promise down the side of Harry's ear, and Harry shuddered and did his best not to toss his head back, not to give in.

"Why should your opinion matter to me?" Harry had to concentrate to work spit into his mouth. "If you still think that, after the attempts I've made to show you that I'm different-"

Malfoy's hand was firm, suddenly, on his hip, and he slid it around with a slow, practiced motion that took most of the strength from Harry's knees. Harry ground his teeth. He would have thought Malfoy had put an aphrodisiac in his wine if he hadn't watched his hands all through dinner and been wise to that kind of trick. No, this was just honest desire, really strong, and it had been so long since he'd felt that that it weakened him when he did feel it.

"So far," Malfoy breathed to him, "all you've done is show off. The way you touched me in my office, the way you _promised _to touch me at dinner...those were only hints, those were only bragging. There's nothing to back them up, is there? That's all I'll ever see or ever get out of the great Harry Potter." He released Harry suddenly and stepped back. "Of course I can't force you to come to bed. But this is the last time you'll ever see me, if you refuse."

Harry exhaled hard. His body was yearning for Malfoy's, and never being in the same bed as him seemed the most horrible fate imaginable, suddenly.

Not to mention that there was no way of solving the case, if he backed out now, and he would never know whether Malfoy had been innocent or guilty. In one sense, he was Malfoy's enemy; in another, his best protection. Robards might plant evidence or make it up, but if Harry Potter, hero of the war, said that Malfoy was innocent, then even Robards would have to accept that verdict.

He turned around and reached for Malfoy's hand. "If you can handle me," he said, "then I'm yours for the night."

There was a dark hunger in Malfoy's eyes, such that Harry decided he must have a particular fancy for lovers saying they were his. He resolved to remember that. Malfoy took Harry's hand, kissed the fingers one by one without speaking, and drew him into a tight clutch for the Apparition.

* * *

They landed in a bedroom that was dark, to Harry's surprise, instead of flaring with firelight as he had expected. Of course, the moonlight coming in through the window and being refracted with a spell that let it glint off every available pale surface might do as well. Harry tried to lift his head and say that he would be more than willing to light the fire if Malfoy wanted him to.

But Malfoy-

_Draco, call him Draco._

Wouldn't let him get far away, instead chasing his mouth the moment Harry tried to move away and biting hard at his lips. Harry said something desperate and short, Draco laughed it down, and then he turned and hurled Harry onto the bed with sheer strength. He was undressing a moment later, flinging off his clothes as though they polluted his skin with their touch.

Harry propped himself up on his elbow and watched. He had decided, after one look at Draco's face, that this wasn't a good time to get him to stop or slow down. _He _might want that, but Draco didn't seem to.

But he could watch, and give Draco all the pleasure of an attentive audience.

Draco perhaps sensed that, because he stopped stripping as though someone was going to set him on fire if he didn't. He paused instead, and gave Harry a languid look over his shoulder as he shed the last of his pants.

Harry had no trouble at all letting his breath quicken when he saw Draco's cock standing upright from the tight mass of straw-blond curls at his groin. In fact, the main danger was that he would have started panting like the Hogwarts Express. He looked up at Draco and nodded, not sure he could speak right now.

"So glad to know that I meet your high standards," Draco whispered, and took a step towards him through the refracted moonlight. Harry watched the light shine on the curves of his hips, the expanse of his thighs, the flex of his muscles. Draco was in much better shape than Harry would have expected from someone whose business involved sitting around on his arse most of the day. Perhaps he played Quidditch or did exercises with his friends.

That part hadn't been included in the reports that Harry had read, or the memos, or the newspaper articles, and he found himself so curious that it nearly overpowered his desire. What was Draco _like, _exactly? What were the parts of himself that he kept hidden away from others, that he caged and protected, that he pretended were unimportant to the point that Zabini felt like he could betray him?

_That makes you feel that you can betray him? _

Harry shuddered and reached out. Draco danced neatly back from his hands and shook his head. "Your turn. I want to see that I'm getting what I paid for."

Harry grinned at him and rolled around on the bed, stripping off his robes with a single neat movement. With them went most of his weapons, but he wasn't worried. He was more competent with a few wandless spells than he'd let anyone know about, and some time ago he'd paid for a potion that would let him recover quickly from one deadly wound, as long as he took it every six months. His last dose had been a fortnight ago.

He knelt up in the center of the bed and worked to get his shirt off, watching Draco watch him. Draco's mouth widened, and so did his eyes, getting darker as they worked their way over Harry's body. Harry stripped down to the waist and then bent and reached for his boots, which he would have taken off already if Draco hadn't thrown him into the middle of the bed.

"What scar is that?"

Harry paused and stared at the pale scar that shone across his belly. It twisted like a snake, thin at the end and steadily wider in the middle, until it ended in a large blob at his hip. "Oh," he said. "That's where one of my old boyfriends got upset because I was leaving him and slit my belly open."

Draco moved a stumbling step nearer, his face so pale that Harry thought for a moment he would faint. "You-you survived that," he said.

Harry smiled into his eyes. "Yes. Just don't do the same thing, please." He had wrestled the man who called himself the Older Darkness to the bed and knocked him unconscious even as he was bleeding out, and then the whirl of concerned faces in St. Mungo's had been the next thing he remembered. He leaned up to kiss Draco and run a hand down the back of his neck. "I much prefer you alive and touching me _this _way," he said, and guided Draco's hand down to his arse.

Draco squeezed with a ferocity that seemed to be almost against his will, and his eyes flashed dark again. Harry drew back, smiling, and got rid of the boots and the trousers and the pants that were in the way. Draco's hand was immediately back on his arse again, and Harry reached up, kissed him, and dragged him down.

It was more intense than it had ever been. Most of the time, part of Harry's brain held back, calculating reactions, numbering the inches that separated him from his wand, keeping track of where his partner's hands were. But _this_ was nothing but pure pleasure. Everywhere he touched, Draco softened, except for his cock, and he grew warmer, and he never took his gaze from Harry's face.

And he never stopped looking arrogant, even as Harry arranged him across the pillows and bent down so that he could sample his cock. His groin was salty, the bitterness at the head of his shaft more pronounced than usual. Harry sighed and groaned, the same sound at once, and then lay down with his weight across Draco's legs and looked up into his face.

Draco leaned back on the pillows and raised an eyebrow. "Suck me," he said.

The command seemed to catch Harry's head as if it were a noose and pull it down. He went, happily, tracing his tongue around and around the head, then sliding all of Draco's cock into his mouth at once. He couldn't perform half the marvels that gossips sometimes tried to attribute to him, but he could do this. Draco made a sound that was ripped out of him.

As for Harry, he concentrated on the soft skin rubbing underneath his tongue, the throb of it against his cheeks, the way that the head felt when he let it rest on his palate for a moment, between carefully covered teeth. Draco's gaze scorched his face. That had never happened before. Harry shuddered and dug one hand deep into the blankets so that he wouldn't try to touch himself before he was ready.

"Suck _harder_."

Harry complied, bobbing his head up and down with the same feeling of compulsion. This was good, this was _good_. He never wanted to do anything else, not if Draco wanted him to do this. He tried to get closer, tried to get more of Draco's cock down his throat, although he knew it was impossible. His nose was already crushed against Draco's groin, and when Draco's hips stuttered forwards, they slammed him in the face. Harry grunted. The burning pain in his nose joined the burning desire under his breastbone and made him writhe on the bed, sucking steadily.

"Stop."

The word took a moment to convince Harry it was real. But Draco was pulling on his hair, so it must be. He rolled away and spent a few moments lying there, gulping and gasping breaths. Draco's hand remained firm in his hair, holding him down when he tried to rise. Harry closed his eyes and let his head droop, feeling like a lion being petted.

"Fuck me."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Harry muttered, but he kept it to a mutter, because the way Draco looked right now convinced him that it would be better for him if Draco didn't hear that. He turned towards the pile of his robes, so that he could find the oil he preferred, but Draco's fingers crimped in his hair and dragged him back. Harry looked up, as much as he could against that grip, to find Draco was holding out a tube.

"Use this. I don't know what ingredients you might have put in yours, and what it might make me smell like."

Harry concealed his snort with care as he took the lube and slicked up his cock. Draco was already lying back, propping a pillow under his own arse and lifting his legs. He spread his cheeks before Harry could even think of doing so. Harry paused and stared, feeling the throb of blood between his legs so hard it hurt.

"Are you going to fuck me, or just stare?" Draco had his head turned to the side and was regarding Harry with wide, haughty eyes that couldn't hide very well how nervous he actually was.

"Fuck _me_, you're beautiful," Harry said, and then watched as Draco turned his head away and the flush made its way down his throat. He was _more _beautiful then. Harry opened his mouth to say so, but Draco tensed and snapped at him, his teeth sounding like a crocodile's as he clashed them.

"Get on with it."

Harry nodded and slid his fingers into Draco's arse. Draco tensed and flinched. Harry kept his fingers moving carefully in place, and ignored, this time, the attempts Draco made to hurry him along. There was what he wanted, and then there was what he needed. Harry was going to make sure he was enjoying this, not just satisfied.

He wished more people could know about this, about the desire that he felt trembling and leaping in him as he slid his fingers into Draco, and at the same time he wished he could keep it to himself, private, for all time. There was a moment that was almost sacred at times like this, almost reverent, and Harry had to close his eyes and pant as if _he _was the one being penetrated when his fingers slid a little deeper.

Draco grabbed his wrist. Harry opened his eyes and saw those dark eyes staring at him, with so many clashing emotions under the surface that they were impossible to read.

"You're going to do this now," Draco whispered. "Or you're going to get the fuck out of my bed. What kind of slut are you, if you can't even listen to the wishes of the people you're shagging?"

Harry smiled, although it made something in his chest twist, and leaned forwards, pulling his fingers out. "You still want me to fuck you?" he asked, sliding his hands over Draco's hips, learning them, learning the places his fingers could fall, learning how he could grip and maneuver and move. "You haven't changed your mind on that part?"

Draco's eyes were wild with passion, though Harry knew it wasn't exactly sexual passion. "I haven't changed my mind on _any _of it," he hissed. "Get on with it!"

Harry nodded, and slid forwards in a single smooth plunge.

Draco's mouth dropped open and slack, and his eyes fluttered shut. Harry kept the smooth tempo of his hips up, the inevitable slide, the moment when he came to rest against Draco, and Draco arched his neck and made a guttural sound. Harry let his fingers flutter along Draco's cock, and echoed the guttural sound when those dark eyes opened and stared up at him again.

"You're incredible," he whispered, the words not something he'd planned to say, torn from his lips before he could stop it.

"So are you," Draco whispered back, and promptly looked furious with himself. Harry closed his eyes to shut out the sight and gave himself over to the slickness, the warmth building between them, the way that his hips flexed and kept hurling him forwards just when he thought he'd reached the point where he could pause for a while.

Again, this was a point where he liked to be in control, to watch his partner's face and play with his partner's reactions and make him moan and weep to come if he could. But right now, Harry was in the same situation himself. He couldn't stop. He couldn't hold back and give Draco some false impression of him. Everything was burning, on the surface, all the desire he felt and the impatience when Draco twitched and clenched his muscles down as if to hold Harry back and the intense satisfaction when Draco began to slam his hips back in response. The warmth inside Draco made him flush; he left bruises where he gripped Draco's arms.

There was no way to convince himself to lie. He gave and took, mindless, and felt as though the truth was written on his skin when he finally gave in and came, his back throbbing like his cock from the awkward position he'd locked it in. He was so worn out that he could barely maintain his body upright or reach out to stroke Draco and make sure he came, too, although he'd always prided himself on that. Draco's eyes were opening and shutting beneath him, and his sigh whipped out of him. If he didn't make a louder sound, at least Harry could listen to the noise of his spunk hitting Harry's wrist and his own stomach and be content.

Harry did let himself drop then, and rolled to the sound, stretching lazily and reaching to take Draco in his arms as he slipped out of him. Draco's eyes fluttered open, and he watched Harry with what seemed like complete dazzlement. Harry knew that he probably looked like a besotted fool as he reached out and traced a finger down Draco's cheek. He was soft, open, flowing, and if Draco had asked anything of him at that moment, he would have done it. Draco could have fucked him without lube, he thought.

It seemed Draco wanted to get away from the intensity, or the intimacy, because he blinked and gulped and turned his head to the side. "What-do you want water?" he whispered.

Harry let him go with a nod, because making Draco comfortable right now would probably ensure that he'd get to spend more time with him later. "Sure."

Draco stood up and padded shakily through a door into what Harry assumed was a bathroom. Harry rolled over to watch him go, and to enjoy the sight of his own red fingermarks on Draco's arms and hips.

Then he closed his eyes and shivered.

_God, that was wonderful. _

He liked sex, but this was better than the kind of sex he'd had and liked just fine. He wanted to know more about Draco, and not just for the case. He didn't know if Draco would allow him that kind of opportunity, but he could ask.

"_Incarcerous._"

Harry rolled and flipped without thought, shooting over to the side of the bed. But his own relaxation worked against him, and he couldn't move fast enough to completely escape the spell; it just ended up tying his wrists and ankles together as he sprawled over the side, rather than binding him to the headboard as Draco had probably intended.

Draco stepped out of the bathroom, eyes dark again, wand in hand. Harry watched him, waiting, and Draco whispered, "Did you think I didn't know what you were, what you were doing? I fucked you because I wanted to know what it was like, but now." He shrugged, and his smile wasn't pleasant. "Now you're going to answer to me."

_Well, _Harry thought a moment later, amusement and wariness coiling together inside him. _You knew it would probably always end like this._


	5. Obstacles Negotiated

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five-Obstacles Negotiated_

Harry spent a few minutes blinking up at Draco. Then he nodded, wincing as the tightly-coiled rope pulled against his neck. "All right. You've caught me. You've figured it out. What do you want to know?"

Draco moved a step back from the bed, his nostrils flaring, as though he thought an admission like that was sure to be another trap. Harry winced again as he thought about it. _Given what I've put him through, and what Zabini did, I can't blame him._

"Why did you sleep with me?" Draco asked. His wand never wavered, even as he paced back and forth. His eyes were locked on Harry's face most of the time, but he did glance away and blink at times, his hands curling around the wand in random patterns. Or "random" patterns, Harry thought. He knew they would tell him a great deal about Draco if he wanted to check.

"Partially for the same reason that you did," Harry said. His mind was working furiously, picking out the details that he would reveal about his purpose in pursuing Draco and the ones he wouldn't. Either way, his case here was spoiled. There was no lie he could come up with about who he really worked for that Draco would believe. There had always been rumors circulating that Harry worked for the Ministry in some undisclosed capacity. If Draco had seen through Harry's seduction, he wouldn't buy that Harry was working for rival Potions masters or for someone who wanted to punish Draco for his past transgressions. "I wanted to see what it was like to sleep with you. You're handsome, and you've changed a lot from what you were in school. Besides, I felt sympathetic with you after reading the reports about you."

"Reports." Draco had conjured a thin whip in his hand, made of no natural material, as Harry learned when he tried to get a fix on it. The whip simply traveled back and forth too fast. Sometimes it seemed to be made of fire, sometimes of steel, sometimes of shadow. Harry swallowed. A spell he didn't recognize was bad news.

"The reports from spies," Harry explained. He had chosen his tactic now, and his muscles relaxed. He could tell Draco most of the truth, and so get out of here with his skin and hopefully Draco's pride, intact, without betraying exactly what the Ministry had wanted him to look for. "They were certain that you were selling illegal potions or ingredients on the side, and so I gathered a series of reports from the papers and people who know you."

Draco paused, a faint flush springing into being and then dying along his throat. "Like Blaise," he said.

Harry nodded.

Draco flicked the whip. It descended on Harry's side, and he hissed and flinched as the pain chewed into him. At least it didn't feel worse than an ordinary burn.

And this was the sort of thing he had signed up for when he became the Ministry's Whore. If he got out of here scarred, he would consider himself lucky. Getting out _alive _was the priority at the time.

_Although I'll have to make sure that I don't bleed out in the meantime. _At least Draco's weapon would probably take care of that, since it seemed to cauterize the wounds the instant it caused them.

"You're working for the Ministry," Draco said casually, as if he'd never hit Harry. "They're jealous of my success. Why did they send _you_, instead of an Auror who would have been able to legally raid my shops and storehouses?"

At least he sounded sane. Harry drew in a ragged breath, to make himself sound weaker than he really was, and answered, "Because they didn't have any legal pretext to do a raid. You hid yourself too well. But they thought that I might be able to get close enough to you. Because of that fascination I had with you, and because, when we were rivals during school, you held various things over my head and hinted at them. They thought you might do the same thing this time, if only from hatred instead of lust."

Draco laughed sharply. "You think you're that irresistible?"

Harry shook his head. "I thought it might work. That's all." Subtly, he tested his bonds, and they promptly grew tighter. Harry suppressed his sigh as best he could. Yes, if Malfoy was going to know how to cast a variation on the _Incarcerous _spell, of course it would be that one. "What are you going to do with me now?"

Draco didn't answer, though at least he didn't pull out one of those "I'm the one who asks questions" lines. He continued to circle the bed, holding his whip and watching Harry thoughtfully. Harry looked him in the eye when he could, but some of the time Draco was behind him and he couldn't. He had started to flex his hands in random patterns. There were ways to defeat even a binding spell that tightened when you tried to escape. Harry should know. He'd invented some of them on the fly, in the middle of a burning house or other occupational hazard.

"You don't seem afraid," Draco said abruptly.

Harry tilted his head back and smiled at him, knowing it was more like a baring of teeth. "Would it gain me anything if I was? I know that you can do whatever you like to me, and there's not much I can do to prevent it."

"The staff of the restaurant where I took you is famous for their discretion," Draco murmured, sitting down on the bed. "But I suspect even they would talk if it was a matter of the famous Harry Potter having disappeared." He reached out and gripped Harry's hair, pulling on it hard enough to make Harry's eyes water. "Meanwhile, there are other things that I can do to prevent the information you've discovered from leaving here. I could _Obliviate _you."

Harry said nothing. There didn't seem much point in noting that he was protected against that, too.

"Someone might look," Draco breathed. "But it would still be the safest course." He swayed that whip towards Harry's eyes, and Harry held his breathing still, refusing to let himself relax. "After I've learned more about what you know, of course."

Harry shrugged, and then winced as the bonds once again tightened, clamping down. That undid some of the work he'd done to get out of them, and he worked his fingers with more slowness, more grace, as he answered. "The Ministry doesn't tell me much of anything other than the very basic information I need for my cases. They don't trust me, ever since I refused to be the perfect little Auror that they wanted me to be." He shaded his voice with bitterness. Of course he had been dangerous to other people when he'd tried to work as a normal Auror, but Ron had been willing to share the danger beside him. That wasn't good enough for the Ministry, though. He had to be _exactly _the way they wanted him to be, or he wasn't doing the right thing, he wasn't good enough. "That's all I know. You can go and question people in the Ministry who fed information to me, but I can't give you all their names."

Draco stared down at him, the whip swaying back and forth in his hands. Harry kept his eyes on his face. This was what had drawn him to Draco in the first place, the sense of something beneath the surface. He had sensed that Draco had changed since their days at Hogwarts, but not exactly how. He wanted to know more.

Well, and he'd wanted to fuck him. But thinking with his dick had only got him so far.

"I don't believe that," Draco said.

Harry sighed, a long, rattling sound that he thought used up most of the air in his lungs. "I don't know what else I can tell you," he snapped. He'd given Draco everything except Robards's name and the specific reason the Ministry had for thinking he was smuggling dragons' eggs. "If you want to go and ask someone whether I could work as an Auror or not, they can confirm-"

Draco leaned in and drew the whip down the side of Harry's face. He shut up, watching it warily. If he _had _to, he would draw in all his wandless magic at once and release it in an uncoordinated blast rather than let Draco blind him. But he would prefer not to. He didn't know what effect it would have on him, and he had _no _idea what effect it would have on Draco.

"I don't believe," Draco breathed, less than three inches away, his eyes large and bright and unblinking in the reflected moonlight, "that you couldn't have whatever you wanted. The Ministry would have found some way to fit you in."

Harry bared his teeth at him. No one had ever conquered him permanently in all the years he'd been doing this job, although some people had slipped away from him before he got all the information he wanted, and he wasn't going to let Draco be the first. "They probably would have. But I have two qualities that are unfamiliar to them, and perhaps also to you."

"Those would be?" Draco swayed the whip closer again, but otherwise didn't react to the insult.

"A conscience," Harry said. "I didn't want to endanger the other people who would have worked with me, and who might get caught up in a Death Eater's mindless need for revenge." Draco jerked, but didn't hit him. Good. Harry would remember that he was still vulnerable to insults about his Death Eater past, and use that to his advantage. "And standards. I didn't want the job they _would _have offered me, picking up medals for doing more than making speeches and sitting behind my desk."

"Because you prefer to be flat on your back in someone's bed," Draco murmured.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Does that mean that I have no standards?" He thought he could raise his clasped hands in a moment, as he worked them slowly and steadily free of the ropes, and hit Draco in the back of the neck. That wouldn't improve his position as far as proving that Draco was guilty or innocent, but it _would _give him a means to escape, and he thought he could do his work better from that position.

"No," Draco said, and he gave a sharp smile for no reason that Harry could name. "What I think it means is that you've changed a great deal, and in ways that you haven't accounted for to yourself. The Potter I knew would have done _anything _rather than this. He would have gone through the torments of hell rather than end up sleeping with me."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever I do in my personal life, or for my job, do you think I would do something actively _repugnant _to me? You saw through my lies. You know when I'm telling the truth and when I'm really not. Was I lying with my body when I slept with you?"

Draco laughed. "You'd like to know the answer to that, wouldn't you."

Harry didn't see that it was worth his while to respond to that. After all, Draco was the one who had started this line of questioning. He started to, slowly, tense the muscles in his legs. He would bring them up to his chest and kick out. He would hit Draco and knock him off-balance, but do less damage than either swinging his arms or using wandless magic would.

At least, that was the plan. Some twitch in his face must have alerted Draco, or else he saw Harry's legs move. He shook his head, said, "I don't think that's a good idea," and cast another binding charm. This time, Harry's whole body switched around as his feet were tied to the posts at the foot of the bed.

Harry blinked and looked up at Draco, who stared back down at him and spun his wand through his fingers as though he was thinking of new and effective ways to stick it into Harry's body. Harry swallowed and breathed out. _All right, this is still possible to get out of. If I try. It's bad, but not as bad as it could have been. I just need to remember that._

Draco seemed to think it was worse than that, and that Harry couldn't possibly escape, because he was more cheerful than Harry had ever seen him. He leaned nearer, smiling at him, and rested his wand against Harry's chest. "Do you know," he whispered, "that I could read your mind right now, and all your deepest dreams and intentions would be revealed to me?"

Harry just blinked at him. Draco hadn't gagged him, but pretending that he had might be the safest course right now. He had given away as much information as he could, especially with nothing but his instincts to tell him that Draco was innocent.

They were _excellent _instincts. But tonight was an equally excellent demonstration of why he could be wrong.

"I could do that," Draco said. "But frankly, not all of your dreams and intentions matter to me. And of the ones that do, I think I know more about them than you do. So I'll _share _them with you instead. That's what sleeping together is about, isn't it? Sharing, not taking?" He held up his wand and passed it back and forth in front of Harry's eyes, as though he assumed Harry needed to see the exact sheen of the wood to feel threatened. "_Somnium carpo._"

The world danced so fast in front of Harry that he couldn't keep up with it, and felt his stomach heave. But it promptly slowed down again, and he was blinking and peering at an image of himself, sitting at the table in Venezia's and toasting Draco the other night.

His first reaction was contempt. _Does he assume that I don't know what I look like? Of course I do, and I chose my robes and my position for that reason._

Then the image seemed to turn inside out, and he was seeing himself from a new angle, from a distance that was filled with sharp laughter and hissing breath.

_This is the career that you chose. _This _is the way that you bring in criminals for the Ministry? This is the flavor of ashes that your dreams turned to, the dreams that you had about a family and a single, faithful partner? _

Harry shook his head and tried to ignore the sensation that he was suffocating. He knew that was only caused by the particular spell Malfoy had chosen, which he wasn't familiar with but was bloody well going to _become _familiar with-

He had settled his own doubts. He had argued everything out with Ron and Hermione. He was healthy. He had made his choices for the right reasons. As for his old dreams, well, he had learned when he was betrayed again and again by people who wanted to sell his secrets to the papers that he would never have a normal life. He would, instead, have a life where he wore his secrets on the surface, in playful, dancing colors, and challenged anyone to find out something hidden and report it. The papers would become uninterested in him, because what they could tell was only what everyone else knew.

_Not that, _the hissing voice said. _But why did you allow yourself to be debased by the Ministry? You could have chosen to date your partners openly without doing it for the Ministry's sake. Why do you allow them to pay you for your troubles if you're doing this only as a result of a personal choice? And if you're really unashamed, why do they call you the Ministry's Whore? _

That had nothing to do with the way _he _felt. It was the way idiots such as Robards did, unable to cope with the fact that Harry enjoyed sex and didn't go out of his way to keep his affairs private. The name was one foisted on him, not one Harry had chosen, and he had only ever flinched from it during the date with Malfoy.

_You're still making a mockery of love and trust, the things that you once said were more precious to you than any amount of gold. People fall in love with you, or lust, and you betray them. You pride yourself on being scrupulously honest in finding out whether someone is guilty or innocent, but where is your honesty when it comes to lying to your lovers?_

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That was a problem, yes. But he had dealt with it in his own way, because he had chosen his job, and there was no way that he could help the public in an Auror-like capacity if he gave this up.

_Really? You don't think the Ministry wouldn't make a place for you in some capacity that didn't involve sitting beyond a desk if you asked? When they would do almost anything to indulge their Golden Child? _

_I didn't want to use my name to do that-_

_ But you use your name to get good seats at restaurants and to charm people who don't want to let you into businesses. How is this different? That's the point. I want to know how it's different. _

Harry shivered and swallowed. The voice was relentless, hammering at him until he wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep it off. He didn't know what spell Malfoy had used, but clearly he would have to learn it, and how to defend against it.

_You're only doing this because you have no respect for other people, and no respect for yourself. You don't think you deserve more than this. You would have found some other way to support yourself and help people if you did._

At that, Harry opened his eyes and shook his head. No. He had lied to himself about how harmful this was to other people, absolutely, and he should have pressed harder to find some Auror work that didn't involve him being a paid whore. But the other things the voice said were untrue.

He knew what he deserved: no more and no less than anyone else. He hadn't become what he had because he hated himself or because he wanted to punish himself for imagined sins. It was becoming clear to him that his motives _had _been confused. But the spell wasn't telling the whole truth.

The voice snarled at him and drummed against him, scraping claws down his brainstem. Harry managed to smile in spite of the pain. Trust a Malfoy to choose a truth-telling spell that was as Dark and painful as possible. Malfoy wouldn't appreciate that if he did say so, of course.

Then Harry sighed. _Draco. He's still Draco. And for some reason, he did reveal the truth to you, even if he did it in the belief that you'd curl up and crawl at his feet in response. He deserves some acknowledgment for that._

The spell was fading. Harry could still hear the voice speaking, but the words had become largely inaudible. And there were no more images, nothing to argue with. He swallowed and opened his eyes.

Draco loomed above him, lip curled back as though he was trying to intimidate Harry with the length of his teeth. Harry had looked at them carefully earlier, though, and was sure that Draco was no vampire. He cleared his throat. "You were right about some things," he said. "I'm sorry."

Draco stared at him. His eyes had widened to the point that Harry wouldn't have been surprised to see his brain through them.

"Could you let me go, now?" Harry wriggled his hands helpfully at Draco. "As you said, someone will notice if I vanish."

"You have nothing more than that to say to me?" Draco's voice had lowered, and his hands had clamped his wand as though he assumed he would have to hold it up in front of him as a shield, rather than casting a Shield Charm.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you," Harry said steadily. "I'll have to reconsider some of what I've done. But I'm not the kind of person I was after the war anymore." He paused to see if Draco was really interested in the story, but he kept staring, so Harry went ahead. "I was easy prey for anyone then. Mention the war and I'd be consumed with guilt. Sleep with me, and I'd cling to you, because I was so convinced that it had to be true love each and every time. That's one thing my job did manage to cure me of, and it's more unhealthy than sleeping with people for money."

"This is the most ridiculous confession I've ever heard," Draco said, shaking his head as though that would dispel the image in front of him.

Harry grinned ruefully at him. "Because I should have caught on years earlier, right? I really didn't consider how my behavior would appear to other people, except to dismiss their opinions as wrong. So I'll think about it and find something else to do. But the spell wasn't right about everything. I'm not a horrible, depraved person. Thinking of myself that way won't do any good or help anything else." He shook his roped wrists at Draco. "What do you want to free me? I can promise some money, if it'll help."

Draco looked as if he wanted to bite him. "I want your promise that you'll say nothing of this to anyone," he ground out at last. "Not to your masters in the Ministry who sent you, not to your friends, not to those who ask why you're abandoning your path of whoredom."

Harry nodded. "Agreed."

Draco cast a spell that sliced through the ropes on his wrists and ankles. Harry sat up and began to get dressed, watching Draco from the corner of one eye. Draco didn't seem sure of what he was going to do, attack Harry or bolt from the room or let him go. He flushed when he noticed Harry looking at him, but didn't move to cover his nakedness, which improved Harry's opinion of his pride.

"I did enjoy sleeping with you," Harry told him. "I'm sorry I did it under false pretenses. But I meant-everything else. You are beautiful, you know." He paused, because Draco stared at him without responding, and that wasn't what he would have expected. "Zabini should be hanged."

Draco transformed in seconds, blossoming from simple, blank-faced observation to snarling at Harry like a tiger. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he said in a savage voice, one hand inching forwards with fingers crooked as if he was going to dig into Harry's throat. "You have no idea what it was like between Blaise and me."

Actually, Harry was fairly certain he did, since he'd read that report from Zabini, but it was true that he didn't know Draco's side of the story and how deeply it had affected him. He nodded. "Sorry," he said. "I hope you find someone else, someone who can mark you as deeply as he did, but in the best way."

Draco did some more staring, and Harry figured that it was best to be gone. He was fully dressed now, anyway. He picked up his wand, balancing it thoughtfully in his fingers. He would have to go home and do some hard thinking. What else could he do that would help him help people and still let him use his name for good purposes, instead of the way the Ministry would like him to use it? He'd have to find out.

"You're not sorry."

"Yes, I am," Harry said, startled, looking up from his wand. "But I told you, I don't believe in wallowing in guilt anymore. Are you _sure _there's nothing I can do for you? Not money, but recommend someone to you, tell you about someone you could talk to-"

"Did you do that?"

Harry had to smile. "Yeah, but it didn't help."

"Get _out_."

Harry nodded and left. He hoped he could see Draco again, but he doubted it would happen. And now he would have to make sure that he came up with some sort of satisfactory story for Robards while also making sure that the Head Auror didn't have a good reason to continue hunting Draco.

Outside, the world smelled of rain. Harry checked the wards as they shut behind him with a sharp click, and then Apparated. Fovea would be waiting.

And so would a glass of wine, and his couch, and a hard think.


	6. Thoughts Thought

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six-Thoughts Thought_

Harry had fed Fovea first, because he wouldn't get _anything _done if he didn't feed her. When she was appropriately full of fruits, nuts, and, because she insisted, the toast that Harry had had as a late-night snack, she sat on his knee and closed her eyes. Like that, Harry thought, scratching the back of her neck, she could probably sit on the ice and sneak up on seals. Didn't polar bears blend into the ice like that? Some old story he'd read about them covering up their black noses with their paws flashed through his head. He'd done his share of picking up random knowledge after the war, during the times when he'd flung himself into books to ignore what was happening around him in the real world.

He was putting off what he had to do.

Harry glanced down at the sleepy Fovea, and decided that he might as well talk it out. No one was there to forbid him, and he generally thought better when he heard his thoughts than when they swirled and boiled in the confines of his skull.

"I honestly thought I was done with this," he said softly. Fovea twitched her crest at him, but didn't wake up. "Questioning myself, I mean. Thinking and re-thinking what I did, having second thoughts, because I couldn't possibly _mean _what I just said.

"But obviously not."

Harry did fall silent, thinking about Draco's words. He felt as though he would be sharing them by speaking them aloud, and that would break the promise he'd made. It was stupid, since Fovea would hardly repeat them to anyone, but...

On the other hand, she _did _sometimes burst out with embarrassing parts of his late-night reports and ranting. And he felt protective of Draco, unwilling to share anything about him with anyone unless he had to.

"It makes _no sense_," he told Fovea. Again she twitched her crest, but then turned and buried her head beneath her wing. That was all right. Her feathers remained warm beneath Harry's fingers, and he could still think about the things he said. "Why should I reconsider who I am and what I do just on Malfoy's say-so? No, he's Draco really, not Malfoy. And that's the problem."

Harry shut his eyes. "If I knew why he hit me so much more deeply than anyone's done in years," he muttered, "then maybe I would know. What is it about him that makes me want him? What is it about him that means I want to defend him from Zabini, even though he's capable of doing that on his own?"

The words rang in his head and rattled down like coins emptied into a hole. Harry reached out and picked up the glass of whisky he'd poured earlier, swallowing fast enough to make himself choke. Well, good. Maybe he deserved to, if he couldn't figure out why Draco mattered so much to him.

"Well, he's pretty," Harry told Fovea, who shoved her head a little further under her wing in her usual refusal to listen to praise of anyone else's physical appearance. "There's that. And he's fit. And he was braver than I expected, to go hand-to-hand with me and to go on a date with me and to let me fuck him when he knew all the while what was happening. Sure, he wanted answers, but he could have got them some other way. And he could have been a lot rougher with me once he had them than he was." He touched the burn next to his eye, and shook his head. It would linger for a few weeks-he'd checked it in the mirror when he arrived back home-but that didn't mean it would permanently scar him. Yes, Draco had been gentle. Patient.

Even when he was clutching the whip and eyeing Harry as if he'd like to beat the answers out of him, patient.

"That's it," Harry said aloud. "I find him intriguing. I don't know exactly why, but there it is. None of the others I slept with...I didn't have history with them in the same way. That might be the only reason."

Fovea slept on his knee with sublime tiredness. Harry smiled down at her. He sometimes wished he was a bird, himself. They were so _innocent, _somehow, so unconcerned. Well, he would see concern from her if he paid too much attention to someone else, but he didn't have the same innocence.

"The war stole it," he murmured. "And the people who betrayed me after the war."

He let himself think about it, for the first time in years: the way that he'd stood frozen in the doorway and listened to the man he'd lost his virginity to whisper through the fireplace to Rita Skeeter; the man who had listened to _that _story, and pressed Harry's hand and promised him that he would never be alone again, and a fortnight later had run away with the tale that the Wizarding World's Precious Savior (phrased just like that) liked a cock up his arse; the woman who had smiled at him up until the point that she tried to plunge a dagger through his throat for failing to save her brother during the war.

"War makes everyone irrational," he told Fovea, and toasted the walls in celebration of this great truth. Still, she slept on. Harry glared at her for a second, then laughed. "Except you," he said, and scratched her again. "I think you would come through a war still demanding scraps of orange and flinging the peel at the people who gave it to you.

"But Draco was wrong about one thing. I moved all my secrets onto the surface and started trading on my name because I was trying to protect myself, sure. But not because I _hate _myself. I'm going to stop being the Ministry's Whore, because of the way it affects other people, and because there are other ways I could contribute to the world without inflicting the same pain. But it doesn't make me want to curl up and flick myself with a whip of self-loathing."

He fell silent again, thinking about Draco and wondering if he would understand that if Harry explained it. He'd spent an awful late of time being self-loathing after the war, blaming himself for not saving people, blaming himself for not noticing the supposedly "obvious" signs of fakery in the people he dated (only later did he think about it and wonder why, if someone else thought his dates were fake, they hadn't pointed it out before they betrayed Harry), blaming himself for not being able to fit into the role the Ministry demanded of him. And he had emerged from the shell of that guilt with two convictions: guilt was useless to actually making a change in the world or atone for anything, and it was _boring._

So he wanted to do something to make up for his mistakes in the past, but that couldn't involve tugging a hair shirt over his head and then rolling around until it scratched the skin off his back. It would have to be something else.

"I think I know what," he told Fovea, who was searching for previously unknown lands under her wing with the tip of her beak. "The hard part is putting it into practice."

Fovea didn't move.

"The kind of thing I would have wanted someone to do for _me_, when I was suffering from betrayal and thought nothing would ever get better," Harry said quietly, and reached down to scratch her tail feathers. "I'll send Draco the names of people he can talk to. He can rip them up or throw them away or send them back-or use them. I have to admit I hope he uses them. But I can't control that. I'll send him one or two presents. Things he might like, things that he wouldn't buy for himself." God knew he'd had a bad case of that, when he was going through the useless self-blame period; he'd thought he didn't "deserve" the things he sometimes wanted, as if buying gifts for himself connected at _all _to how worthless and used he felt. "I'll make sure that he sees some tangible proof of my quitting my job."

And after that?

Harry shrugged. "At some point, he has to take care of himself, and I have to let him," he told Fovea.

Fovea's back told the world how unimpressed she was, not just with Harry, but with the universe in general. Harry smiled. He didn't mind being part of that universe, not really.

* * *

Robards was no problem. The good thing about him was that his perceptions of the world were simplistic and he couldn't imagine that someone might not agree with him. All Harry had to do was widen his eyes and put enough hushed wonder into his voice, and Robards ate it up like chocolate cake.

"You were right," he said. "How long have I been like this, not paying attention to the ways that I sold myself and debased myself?" Although Robards had once again firecalled him early, Harry had made sure that he was wearing a set of modest Auror robes and not a towel when he came out to the fireplace. He hadn't missed the way that Robards gave a sort of little nod, unable to stop himself from approving. _So easy to manipulate. Nothing like Draco. _"So I've decided that I would rather not whore my body any longer. The wizarding world deserves better." He stared at his hands and conjured up a blush. "My fans deserve better."

It was the same thing Robards had been saying for years, and Harry had long since discovered that there was nothing people were more eager to believe. He waited until Robards cleared his throat and then looked up with a small smile. "Sorry, sir," he said. "If I went-overboard. I need some time to consider, to decide what I'm going to do next." _And find the weak points in the Ministry I can leverage into a new career. _

"That's perfectly fine," Robards said. "You were seen leaving with Malfoy last night. What did you discover?"

Harry cringed a little. "Sir," he whispered. "I can't-I didn't discover anything."

"What?" Robards's voice sank.

Harry shook his head and put his hands over his face. He was probably overacting it a little, but Robards wasn't the subtlest of people and was unlikely to pick up on that. "Malfoy went to take off his clothes, and I saw the Dark Mark," he whispered. "I remembered who he was. Who _I _was. And that was when the shame overwhelmed me. I couldn't fuck someone like that." Through the gaps in his fingers, he saw Robards wince at the word _fuck, _but Harry wasn't worried about that, because it was still the most appropriate one to use. Robards would think the whole thing obscene, after all. "I couldn't take it. I fled."

"Does he suspect?" Robards's voice had roughened. Harry dropped his hands and shook his head with an innocent, wide-eyed expression, all the while watching Robards's face.

_Yes. _He thought he understood now, from the way that Robards's eyes darted and his cheeks flushed. _This is personal, not a purely Ministry manner. I'll find out how and make sure that Draco doesn't have to worry about him again._

"No," Harry said. "He was out of the room. I left a note telling him that it was my fault, that I couldn't sleep with someone I felt revolted by, and ignored him when he called my name. He's going to think it was all personal, all of it, from the beginning to the end."

He sharpened the last sentence a bit, and watched it go into Robards like a dart. He actually flinched before he caught himself. Harry looked down and shrugged to keep from laughing.

"And he would be right," he said. "About everything but the initial assignment. I never realized how personal this was, how I was debasing sex and myself by spending time with people I didn't care for."

He had repeated his initial words, but Robards didn't seem to notice, instead nodding with an absorbed expression. "Perhaps I should have not assigned this to you, Potter," he muttered. Harry blinked, because that was the closest Robards had come to admitting a mistake, but he continued on and Harry understood. "Perhaps then, you would still be working for us."

"Sir?" Harry asked, and poured polite confusion into his voice. "Are you saying that I _shouldn't _stop being a whore?"

Robards snapped his attention back to the conversation. "No, of course not!" he exclaimed. "But you must know that we'll consider you on unofficial holiday until such a time as you can come up with some way of helping the Ministry. You _know _that you can't be in the field, and we can hardly pay you to sit around and do nothing, after all!" He tried to be jocular on the last words. He was bad at it.

Harry acknowledged later that he shouldn't even have _tried _what he had in mind, because it needed a more open mind-and ears-than he would find in Robards, but at least this way no one could say that he hadn't tried. "I've already thought of a way that I can help, sir. One thing I did prove while I sold myself is that a lot of people will do _anything _for a bit of consideration from the Chosen One. I thought I could work with a different Ministry Department, perhaps visit people who don't need to be seduced but would give up information if I flattered them? Or visit new dedications and war memorials and monuments, and show..."

He trailed off, because Robards was staring at him, his eyes grown hard and suspicious. "You never wanted to do such work before, when it would have done us a bloody bit of good," he said, voice tight. "Why now?"

Harry shook his head impatiently. "No, I didn't want to go to Ministry functions and make political speeches, because I'm no good at them," he said. "One-to-one interactions with people and learning what they need and what they'll accept from me, yes." _Though not as good as I should have been. Sorry, Draco. _"But not speeches. They all sound insincere to me when I read them, and that means that they sound insincere to others when I recite them."

Robards drew himself up. "So you wish to help the Ministry in your _own _way, not as you're told," he said.

Harry felt his eyes glitter. "I've done as I was told for the past few years," he said mildly. "I've gone after who I've been told to go after, and if you were disgusted by me, still, you never missed a chance to use my skills. Why are you objecting now, when I've proposed a different solution that would be less disgusting?"

"Because you still see yourself as more important than the Ministry, Potter!" Robards's face flushed as he bent in towards the fire, and Harry was glad that no one in another Department had ever suspected Robards of corruption and approached Harry to do something about it, because he could never have pulled off a convincing seduction on someone that ugly. "Because being an Auror requires a lifetime of dedicated, selfless service, but _you_ see it as nothing more than a chance to do what you want! Whether that's sleep with ten thousand men or speak to people you want to talk to-light work, that-you care more about your own convictions than those of the people you're working for!"

Harry waited until he was sure that Robards was done and had no more hot air to blow. Then he leaned forwards and whispered, "And your lifetime of service is selfless and without spots, sir? Really? You care more for the Ministry's convictions than your own? When you made your disgust for what I did clear and plain to me every day?"

Robards's eyes widened, and then the fire went out as he vanished abruptly from the fireplace in his office. Harry leaned his head back on the wall and sighed, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling to ask the world to pity him.

Robards was an arse, and at the moment, Harry didn't know whether he still had a job. Luckily, there were people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement he could talk to who had the power to give him work over Robards's head. And if he was no longer an Auror, then Robards didn't have command of him, anyway.

That last reaction, though...

_It was too violent if he really had no personal stake in bringing down Malfoy. And his earlier reactions, too._

Harry sat up with a snap, his robes flying around him. He had another project now, and one that would require his attention and skill and cunning, although he would more verbally seduce people than sexually do it.

Fovea hopped over to him along the floor and bobbed her head at his feet. Harry laughed and scooped her up on one arm. She spread her wings and turned her head back and forth, glorying in the sunlight that sprawled through Harry's large windows.

"Shall I go and find out what Robards wants, and do a favor for Draco in the meantime?" he asked her, and she crooned at him. "I think I shall."

* * *

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but we can't really let you have that kind of information."

Harry smiled at the overanxious young librarian in front of him, a woman named Catherine Gedney who blushed and avoided his eyes in a way that said she didn't think she was worthy of anyone's attention. Harry felt sorry for her. She had done her work more than competently so far, bringing him the public records pertaining to Draco's business and other, competing Potions businesses, but acted as though that wasn't enough.

"I can find it elsewhere, but I would actually rather look at it here," Harry said, and leaned forwards to bring his voice down to a murmur. "You see, I have reason to suspect that a man I'd been charged with investigating was wrongfully accused. But the wizard who accused him has more power than he does. _I _can hopefully search for the information needed to clear my friend's name. He can't."

As he had suspected, the words, which were no more than the truth, carefully applied, made Gedney's face brighten and her interest charge back to the forefront like a cresting wave. "You mean that?" she whispered. "Someone needs my help, and I can _give _it?"

Harry nodded to her. There were sometimes things more seductive than a moment of his time. In Gedney's case, she wanted self-confidence and a sign that her task and her labor were important in more than an incidental way. He thought that looking up the information that might drive Robards to focus on Malfoy could give her that. "Can you help me, then?"

"I will."

They spent the rest of the morning sorting through the files that Potions ingredients companies and apothecaries were required to keep on file with the Ministry, allegedly so that the Aurors could pull them if any suspicious activity showed up. (In reality, Harry thought the Ministry mostly needed the stacks and stacks of parchment to prop up the ceilings that would collapse otherwise). The file that contained Malfoy's documents was suspiciously well-thumbed, and Harry shook his head over it. _You've been in power too long, Robards, and grown careless with it. If you'd had more opposition in your life, then you would have known that it's a bad thing to leave traces of your obsessions behind. _

Near the middle of the afternoon, Harry finally found what he was looking for. Gedney was starting to close a slender file that consisted of little more than the relevant date of founding and the inventory of the company in question, when Harry caught sight of a list of names. He reached out and deftly plucked it forth, studying it.

It was a list of the company's founders, investors, and part-time workers, otherwise known as the ones who actually ran the apothecaries selling their stock. The name that had leaped out at him was in the center.

Yes. It was Robards.

"What is it?" Gedney was craning her neck to see. Harry let her look at it, though since he hadn't told her the name he was looking for, the chances that she would zero in on the appropriate one were small. He shook his head.

It had been that simple, after all. Robards had invested his money in a different company that sold Potions ingredients. Younger and smaller than Draco's, it couldn't compete with his. So Robards had obviously sought information on Draco's suppliers and how he got some of his ingredients, and when that didn't work, he had framed him.

_Or picked up on one of the loose ends that Draco left dangling, _Harry cautioned himself a minute later. He couldn't yet say, not for certain, that Draco was innocent of the smuggling charges, just that Robards's motivation in asking Harry to investigate the case was highly suspect. Now that he had the proof from one side, he would go at it from the other and find out whether there had ever been an arrest of a dragon's eggs smuggler who had confessed to also being linked to Draco.

"Mr. Potter?"

Gedney's voice was soft. Harry blinked at her and found that she had taken a step away from him, her precious file carefully tucked in her arms. "Ms. Gedney?" he asked, as courteous as she had been in addressing him.

"You looked-frightening," she said, and then flushed. "Sorry. But you did."

"No, you're perfectly right," Harry said, and relaxed his muscles one by one. The last thing he needed to do was inspire fear in people who helped him. Among many other things, it ensured that no one else would want to help him again. "Thank you, Ms. Gedney," he said formally, and extended his hand to her. She shook it, looking a bit confused. "You've prevented harm coming to an innocent man." He hesitated. He didn't think it would come to this, because both Draco and Robards would surely prefer to have the matter handled privately, but... "Would you be willing to testify, if you had to?"

"Could I do it by Pensieve memory?" Gedney ducked her head, her brown fringe swinging in front of her eyes. "I think I'd faint if I had to get up in front of the Wizengamot and say things like-like you probably want me to say."

Harry felt his eyes softening. "Of course," he said quietly.

"Then I will."

Harry kissed her hand, not trying to make it romantic this time, not the way he would have for Draco. "Thank you," he said. "Your courage is the kind that makes the world better."

She blinked at him. "But...you're the one..."

"There's more than one kind of courage," Harry said, thinking of the way that Draco had confronted him with staring eyes and readied wand when he had a motivation for wanting Harry to be innocent, when his muscles were still slack from their fucking. "Believe me, I know."

She stared at him, and then wandered away to stand behind her desk again, her expression distant. Harry smiled at the back of her head and left the library, turning his steps towards the nearest Ministry entrance. They might well have released their "informant" against Draco by now, if he had ever existed, but Harry would at the very least have arrest records to draw on.

Someone seized his arm and tugged on it. Harry had a glimpse of a cloaked figure with flying blond hair beneath the hood.

It was the hair that kept him from twisting free and kicking his captor's legs out from beneath him as he could have. He went with the forced Side-Along Apparition a moment later, and found himself standing in Draco's inner office, his back to the chair that changed its shape, his face to the desk, and his heart pounding erratically.

Draco pulled back his hood and stared at him. Then he took a step closer, near enough for Harry to smell his scent.

"We're not done," he said. "Not yet."

Harry had to close his eyes to deal with the momentary flare of sweetness that passed through him.

And the warning. _Don't fuck this up._


	7. Positions Negotiated

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven-Positions Negotiated_

Harry's head was reeling, and he felt as though he would probably do something to drive Draco further away from him if he didn't have a break from the intensity. He coughed and reached out a hand for the chair behind him. "Do you mind if I sit down?" he asked.

Draco considered him as if wondering how many conspiracies he could organize from a chair, and then inclined his head in a gracious nod. Harry nodded back and sat down, trying to make himself breathe.

It hurt.

It hurt to know that he might have a second chance here, and not entirely why. It hurt to know that he might have done everything he could for Draco and Draco was just pulling him here to confirm that. It hurt to know that he might finally have found someone he wanted to date honestly, not just have sex with, and he had already screwed things up beyond all repair.

But the only way he could find out any of those things was by going forwards and hoping it turned out that one of his suppositions was wrong. He nodded. "What would you like to know?"

"You were looking for information on Potions businesses." Draco stalked behind his desk. In here, in control of his environment, Harry thought he had a dangerous edge to him that he might not possess even when he was prowling around with a whip of fire in his hand and Harry was naked. The edge made Harry's throat ache with desire. He concentrated on Draco's words instead of thinking too much about that. "It was easy to determine that, flailing about as you were."

_It was only flailing about if you were spying on me, _Harry wanted to retort, but he didn't. He nodded instead. "I was looking for Potions information because it made sense to me that my superior, Head Auror Robards, would have some personal stake in ordering me to investigate you. The evidence against you was too thin. And I found it. He's invested in a rival business that's probably tried to trick or spy your secrets out of you, and failed. Now that he knows he doesn't have a prayer of uncovering them, he was hoping I would do his dirty work for him."

Draco's eyes widened at him. "You didn't explain that when I had you," he said.

Harry also ignored his impulse to argue who had had who, just then. Draco tying him up had to give Draco the edge. Probably. "I know. I only found it just now. And I have a witness who will testify, if it comes to a court case."

Draco uncoiled and took a step towards him. "I mean that you never mentioned Robards's name when you were in my bed," he said, quietly but with an amount of force that caused Harry to nod in spite of himself. "Why change your mind and trade that information to me now? What do you want?"

"At the time," Harry said, "I still thought there was a chance that the crime I was supposed to get information on was real. I think the chance is too small now to bother with. Robards is a fool. Take him down if you can. Otherwise I'll deposit what I found with a few of his enemies in the Department and watch the fireworks from a safe distance."

"What 'crime' was I accused of?" Draco pronounced the second word as though it was the name of a small scaly creature he'd found in his soup.

"Smuggling dragons' eggs," Harry said, and wished Robards could be here to watch the flush stealing across Draco's cheeks and down his throat. "Someone who managed to survive the usual fate of smugglers offered your name up to the Ministry."

"I would never put any of my people in such danger," Draco said, and now the creature in his soup had sprouted hairs and proceeded to crawl up his arm. "I would have thought even _you_ would know that."

Harry shrugged. "I know a little about you." _The way you taste. What you look like naked. That you like to take charge in bed and use whips and bondage on people. _"That's not enough to be absolutely sure that you wouldn't smuggle dragons' eggs. I'm sure there are things you do smuggle."

Draco reached out as if he was intending to touch an alarm or bell in the center of the desk, although Harry personally couldn't see anything where his hand would fall but a small depression in the wood. Harry shook his head. "That doesn't mean I'm going to arrest you for it. In the first place, I would have to have proof in front of me to do that. In the second, chances are excellent that I won't be in the Auror Department in a few days."

Draco hesitated some more, and then let his hand fall back to his side. "You're taking large risks for someone you fucked once," he said stiffly.

"I always did my best to make sure that I got the truth, one way or the other," Harry said. "And I like you. I hope that's not clouding my judgment, and that you won't do something stupid like go out and start smuggling dragons' eggs now. But I'm willing to take the risk."

"You're stupid," Draco said, tasting the words as if they weren't quite the right ones but he couldn't find the ones that would be.

Harry shrugged. "I don't think I'm risking any lives this way. Like I said, you're not the type to start smuggling dragons' eggs simply because someone told you they _thought _you were. If you're already smuggling dragons' eggs, then you'll keep right on doing it, and the people who volunteer for it should damn well know what they're doing. I don't think it'll come down to a duel between you and Robards, and he can take his own risks as far as I'm concerned. I won't be his tool now."

"You still haven't considered what I wanted you to." Draco leaned forwards, his hands clutching at the edges of his desk, his arse hovering above it. His eyes were so compelling that it was hard to look at other part of him, though. "You still haven't reconsidered your actions as a whore."

"You like that word," Harry said. "And I just forgot to tell you that part. I told Robards I wasn't going to act that way anymore. He was upset, but fuck him. I have people I can go to who would be happy to have me owe them favors or pay back favors they owe me."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You've become a very political creature. I'm not sure I like it."

Harry stared at him. "Well, excuse me, Mr. Slytherin," he said, when he managed to find his voice. "Why do you _care? _As you explained, you wanted to fuck me, but that's a long way from caring about my moral well-being."

The flush that climbed up Draco's neck this time was slower than the other one, which probably meant it wasn't a flush of indignation. Harry remained quiet and waited, wondering what in the world he was going to say.

"You're not who you should be," Draco said, his voice so low that Harry thought he was probably pulling the words from the same place inside himself he'd taken some of the more honest words during their confrontation in his bedroom. "Not who I would have expected you to become after the war. Less honest, more conniving. Better at reading people, but you don't use it for the purposes that I would expect you to."

Harry sighed. That was an element in the way Ron and Hermione thought about him, too, but at least his friends knew him well enough to have a right to that concern. Draco was going by old stereotypes, old ideas.

"I would have ended up like that, maybe," he said. "If the world had been the way I thought it was, if all the people I associated with were as innocent as I believed they were. They weren't. By the end, I wasn't. It's regrettable, but it's not something I'm going to spend the rest of my life lamenting. I did make a mistake when I chose to work by selling my body, though. I've changed my mind. I have the right to do that."

"But what are you going to do now?" Draco leaned forwards as if he thought that would intimidate Harry. It just made Harry think that he was probably in danger of falling all the way forwards, as far as he was already leaning. He was laughable-and endearing. "Did you really think that you'd be able to completely change your mind and the way you act? How do I know your new job won't be the same as your current one?"

"You don't," Harry said. "No one else except Robards and you knows that I intend to quit my job yet, and not that many people knew about it in the first place. You don't have independent witnesses. You have my word, and that's all."

Draco sneered at him. "I don't think you're going to change."

Harry banged a hand down on the arm of the chair. Draco jumped and stared at him in offense, but Harry really didn't care. "Fuck you, Draco," he snarled, standing. "I've given you as much as you deserve, the apology and the change that you wanted me to make. I don't owe you a guarantee for the rest of my life. I'm sure that I'll do things you don't approve of, like continuing to work for the Ministry and wearing robes that don't suit me. Too bad. We fucked, you proved that you knew what I was up to all along, you made me face the truth, I apologized. That's it." He turned for the office door, shaking his head. He'd been a fool to let Draco Apparate him, really. There were too many bad memories between them. He shouldn't have slept with someone he had this kind of history with, though for different reasons than what he'd told Robards.

"You don't think that what you did to me is worse than anything I did to you?"

"No," Harry said, turning around. It appeared that he wouldn't get out the door without some final insults returned. That didn't mean it would go according to Draco's expectations. "Not when thinking that would mean wallowing, _endlessly, _and if that's what you want me to do, then yeah, you'll be waiting for the rest of your life. I asked before if there was something you wanted me to do to make up for it, and quitting my job seemed to be your price. Is there something else? I'm interested in atoning for my crimes, not sitting there and agonizing over them."

Draco took a step towards him. His eyes were liquid and bright with confusion. "But..."

"Is there something else?" Harry clenched a fist so he would keep his hand to himself and keep from punching Draco. "What is it?"

"This isn't the way that," Draco said, and then stopped as if even _he _didn't know where that sentence was going. "This isn't the way I expected you to react," he said at last. "A _normal _person would either still be apologizing and upset for what he'd done to me, or he'd have refused to quit his job for me."

Harry rolled his eyes. "So this whole thing comes down to my not doing what you wanted and expected me to do. Noted. Too bad. This is the way I _live _now. This is the way I developed to protect myself." He put a hand on the door and started to push it open, then hesitated. If Draco had brought them here by Apparition, there ought to be a way to leave by Apparition. He would certainly prefer that to leaving by the front office and fueling rumors Draco probably didn't want fueled.

"Has it occurred to you," Draco said softly, pressing closer, "that the way you've developed to protect yourself is pretty fucked-up?"

Harry turned around and snarled at him. "If I had refused to quit my job like the 'normal' person you're carrying around in your head, then you would have mocked me for not acknowledging the truth your spell showed me and gone away secure in the knowledge that I didn't really understand how I'd hurt you. I am still apologizing, and you don't want to listen. It's not enough. What _will _be enough? That's what I'm asking."

"Nothing," Draco said, and his face was finally shining with a sort of glow of rage. "Not after the way Blaise hurt me, and you did the same thing."

Harry bowed to him. "Then we're done," he said. "If I hurt you unforgivably, then why should you forgive me?"

And he Apparated, straight through the wards Draco had lowered so they could get in and not put back up, back to the grounds of his house, where he walked for a long time in the gardens before he gave up and went back inside. He would upset Fovea if he handled her in this mood, but she was already screeching because she had seen him through a window and he hadn't come inside, so he might as well enjoy the company of his bird.

* * *

"Wow, mate." Ron sat across the kitchen table from Harry and stared at him, not quite concealing the glow of happiness in his eyes. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Go to someone higher up than Robards and explain what happened and what my skills are." Harry drained the rest of the cup of tea and set it down with a thump on the table. He was still burning from the confrontation with Draco, which he hadn't told Ron about, although it had been yesterday. What did Draco want him to _do_? Act like the Gryffindor he used to be, seemed to be the answer, and Harry was sorry, but that wasn't the kind of person he was anymore. "They can probably find a job for me."

"You could be my partner-"

Harry snorted. "I didn't get all the Auror training I'd need to do that, Ron. And the problem of putting you in danger still applies, especially now that I'm more likely to have people who are relatives of the ones I arrested after me. No, I'd rather do something that would let me use the skills I developed-reading people, using my fame in a way that makes people feel happy and satisfied and that I can live with-than try to get caught up in a field that I'm probably too old for anyway. I'll never be as good as you."

Ron stared at him in confusion. "But that was all you wanted for years, when we were in school," he said.

"What _is _it lately," Harry snapped, his rage igniting, "with people thinking that I must have to be exactly like the person I wanted to be in school, or else I'm not happy and not fulfilled? I don't _want _to be an Auror, I don't _want _to marry a perfectly nice girl and have eight kids, I don't _want _to pretend I'm exactly the same as everybody else because I know I'm not."

Ron held up a hand. "Why are you taking this out on me?" he asked, eyes deep and kind. "I think you're angry at someone else."

Harry sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry," he said. "Yeah, you're right. But the problem is the same. Everyone thinks that because I'm changing one thing about myself, I should go right back to the naive, loyal, honest Gryffindor who wanted to do nothing but chase Dark wizards. I don't _want_ to, Ron. I've changed. Why can no one see that? Yeah, some of the reasons I changed sucked, but they happened. I can't just reverse the changes because that would make other people more comfortable."

"They could be a sign of psychological problems-"

"Why?" Harry asked harshly. "Because my not being what you think I should be is inevitably a sign of psychological problems?"

Ron deliberately sipped his tea before he replied. "I didn't know you would be so angry about this," he said quietly.

"I want to know, though." Harry leaned forwards intently. "And this is about _you_, not other people. Why are the changes I've gone through a sign of psychological problems? I'm almost thirty, Ron, and I didn't know I was a wizard until I was eleven. I've spent longer as this changed person than I spent as the person you think I should be. Do you really think that that's who I am? Why? Haven't you changed from the teenager you were?"

"No one forced me to change," Ron said, his frown drifting across his face like a slow-building thundercloud. "That's the difference."

"So marriage and having a child didn't force some differences on you? Losing Fred? Becoming an Auror?"

Ron breathed out slowly. "I-well, I didn't make all the changes to the corruption in the Ministry that I thought I was going to," he admitted. "And I can get along with people now that I would have disdained when we were at school, either because they were Slytherins or because they were richer than we were."

Harry nodded. "Exactly. That's the place where I am. If I could go back and learn about the people who surrounded me and how eager they were to use me less harshly, then I would. But I'm not mourning my lost childhood and thinking about how to get it back all the time. This is who I am."

Ron finished his tea and sat back in his chair, studying him. "I thought having sex a lot was something that was part of you, too," he said. "And you gave that up."

Harry had to laugh. "Good point. But I still like having sex, and I'm still not going to look only at people I can get married to and have a family with. That's the way you and Hermione thought I was going, didn't you?"

Ron nodded. "And it would have been perfect if you married Ginny, because that way we'd all be part of the same family." He studied Harry now as if he could see the future where Harry had had three or four children, all with red hair, all perfect Gryffindors and perfect Weasleys.

"I still feel like part of the same family as you," Harry said firmly. "A chosen family, not a blood family. The difference is that we're a little more separated than we were in school, with different lives and different goals. And I think the bigger difference, at bottom, is that I've accepted I'll never fit into the crowd and I'll never stop people from saying whatever they like about me. I've accepted that enough to use it against my enemies, now. That's all."

"If you're happy, mate," Ron said. "That's really all I ask for."

Harry relaxed. "Good." That was all he asked for, too. And he was lucky to have friends who would stay with him through as much as Ron and Hermione had, he knew. If they asked questions and forced him to think about things, well, he would have done the same thing if they had suddenly declared that they wanted to end their marriage so that Ron could become a lawyer and Hermione an Auror.

The major, frustrating thing was that he had made his changes long ago and his friends kept acting as if he would reverse them overnight. But they might finally be on the road to not thinking like that anymore, which was good enough for him.

* * *

Fovea woke Harry up the next morning with a series of screeches that didn't sound as though they came from her normal hunger or boredom. Harry opened his eyes and swung his feet out of bed with a frown. He was still clad in a dressing gown, so he wandered out of his room and headed for her aviary just as he was.

Fovea was hopping up and down on her perch, staring out the glass walls that looked towards Harry's outer defenses. Harry reached up and scratched her on the head, as much as he could when she kept bobbing that head past him. Fovea fluttered awkwardly to his shoulder and screamed in his ear about the intensity of the problem and how no one listened to her.

"Someone might listen to you if you were a bit _quieter_," Harry told her, and was nipped on the ear for his trouble. He cast a charm that ought to let him see through the glass without letting anyone else see inside or disrupting the wards. It looked as though a piece of the glass had suddenly vanished.

Draco was there, walking back and forth as if he were searching for a weak point in the defenses. Harry felt his heart speed up as he stared at him. Then he shook his head.

"He _must _be a masochist," he told Fovea. "Why else would he seek out someone who tricked him, betrayed him, and who he can't forgive?"

Fovea, now that he had noticed the intruder, didn't seem interested. She shit down the back of his robe and whistled, cocking her head in the way she did when she was trying to coax treats out of the universe by saying, "I am cute."

"I don't know that I'm interested in dating a masochist," Harry muttered, even though he knew he would shortly be lowering the wards and letting Draco in. "He might end up wanting me to dress like Zabini or something."

"I am _desperately_ cute," said Fovea's head-tilt this time, the feathers of her crest almost brushing Harry's shoulder.

"You can wait a while," Harry told her, and put her back on her perch.

"I am so cute I cannot believe you did that," said Fovea's head-tilt and turned back.

Harry shook his head and walked towards one of the carvings of a rose on the wall in his dining room. Touching it made the wards flicker and vanish for a brief moment. Harry waited until he knew that Draco would have had the sense to cross, then touched them again and brought them back up. No telling what reporters or spies for Robards might come in if he left them down too long.

He cast a charm to straighten his hair as much as it ever got straightened and put on his shoes. Then he hesitated, shrugged, and cast a breath-freshening charm.

He was probably being presumptuous, but no more than Draco was by coming here in the first place.

When he opened his front door, Draco stood on the stoop. He eyed Harry's dressing robe without comment, and then met his eyes and smiled. Harry had to stop himself from promising to do whatever Draco wanted in exchange for another smile. He wasn't that desperate.

Honestly.

"I thought of something you can do for me," Draco told him.


	8. Problems Leaped

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight-Problems Leaped_

Once in the house, Draco didn't seem interested in explaining the decision he had come to, or the task that he wanted Harry to complete for him. He wandered in circles, trailing his hand over the mantle and the furniture and the books on the shelves. Harry tried to be irritated as he watched him, but he couldn't. He found himself smiling instead, as though Draco's fussiness was precious, as though there was something to be valued in his presence in Harry's house.

Then he became aware that he was thinking that and grimaced at himself. Yes, _he _might feel that way, but Draco wouldn't, and it would become obvious the minute they spoke that they held different goals. Harry didn't want to fool himself about this the way he'd fooled himself for so many years about who his work really hurt.

So he concealed his smile and spoke with a bored undertone in the back of his voice that he'd learned from two of the men he used to date. "So. What is this famous thing that you wanted me to do for you?"

Draco paused in examining the jade lion that sat on the fireplace-something Harry had seen in a shop off Diagon Alley and liked enough to buy-and turned around. His face was set in a strange expression, as though Harry had just banished a smile trying to form there. "Are you always so rude to your guests?" he murmured. "You haven't offered me tea yet."

"Do you want tea?" Harry didn't grind his teeth, but that cost him an effort.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you." Instead of remaining in the drawing room and continuing his inspection, Draco followed him into the kitchen.

Harry felt strange having him there, although he supposed it was no worse than having him in the drawing room. He kept his back turned as he pulled the right materials to make his favorite tea out of the cupboards, but he could feel Draco's hand on the polished oak table, his eyes on the cupboards themselves-made of yellow pine, and smoothed by Harry's spells-and the patterned floor. The tiles didn't seem to be anything special at first, but arranged themselves in the shape of a flying hippogriff the longer you looked.

Harry heard the satisfied little catch of Draco's breath when he saw the hippogriff. "Interesting," he remarked. "I would have thought that you'd have chosen a lion, or at least a griffin."

Harry turned around with the cups in his hands and the perfect smile, or so he thought, on his face. "I have reasons for thinking back fondly on hippogriffs."

Draco moved his hand to his arm before he could stop himself. Harry darted a glance, interested and suddenly remembering he had never noticed, but no, there was no scar from Buckbeak there. He hadn't really thought there would be. Draco would have handled true pain differently from the mixture of pain and humiliation that Buckbeak had inflicted.

_You've seen the way he handles it. _Harry shuddered, and then told himself to stop thinking like that and pay attention to the Draco who was actually in front of him, not the one he had imagined.

It wasn't long until the kettle whistled, and Harry filled the cups. Draco was still behind him, and Harry arched his back in spite of himself. The longer Draco watched him, the more he felt _stroked_.

"This is a nicer house than I thought you would have," Draco said, as Harry handed him his cup. He took a long, slow sip, his eyes half-closing and his throat releasing a little hum of sound before he could stop himself. Harry smiled. He made tea good enough that even Hermione couldn't suggest anything to improve on it, and that was rare.

"Because whores don't get paid that much?"

Draco lowered the cup and raised one eyebrow at Harry. "You told me that you had stopped being one."

"I have." Harry sipped his own tea, and then put it aside on the counter. Normally, he would have kept it, since it would give him something to do with his hands, but he didn't feel like it today. He wanted to face Draco with the compendium of everything that was honest in him. "But most people think that once a whore, always a whore."

"Once tainted, always tainted," Draco said, and lifted his head as though inviting Harry to get a closer look at him.

Harry smiled before he could stop himself at the obvious comparison between them. This was the Draco he had seen in Venezia's, and in his office, and even in the dinner right before he decided to sleep with Harry, not the wild-eyed, desperate version who had insisted that Harry confront the truth about himself. Harry thought he could like both versions. "Yes. But what was it that you came to ask me?"

Draco frowned into his cup for a moment. "Before I could ask myself what would make me trust you again," he said quietly, "I had to think why your actions threw me. I had known from the beginning that you weren't coming to me because you really wanted me. I _planned _to fuck you to satisfy my own desires and then prove to you that I knew all along. Why was I so badly-shaken when you lived down to expectations?"

"Because of Zabini?" Harry suggested.

"If you keep harping on Blaise, I shall be upset." Draco's eyes could easily have nailed Harry to the wall. "He has very little to do with what happened between us. No. I was confused by the honesty that you brought to your performance in bed. I thought you would be more sophisticated than you were, more distant, more focused on my pleasure instead of your own. That, at least, is the stereotype of the courtesan who seduces for business and money."

"I don't think anyone's ever called me a _courtesan_ before," Harry mused. "I might have liked that name better than whore."

Draco looked at him, then seemed to decide that there were some things Harry would never stop saying because he paused, and went on. "So there you were, honest and dishonest at the same time. You regretted that you were spying on me, but you'd done it. And then you spoke to me as if you were sorry but not sorry enough to do everything I demanded. It-made me think. It proved that you weren't as simple and straightforward as I had thought, and neither were my desires for you."

Harry took a sip of the tea so that his throat wouldn't be dry when he tried to speak. "I'm glad to hear that at least you're giving me a second chance," he said.

Draco's smile had several shades and overtones to it that Harry didn't think he could name. "I had to," he said. "Because it was a second chance for me, too. A chance to see what's real about you, the honesty and the dishonesty, or both at once. I think the answer is both, but we'll see how you act when I ask this of you."

"Ask the bloody question," Harry said, and managed to keep his hand from tapping on the counter beside him only with sheer force of will.

"Ah, yes, the impatience is very real," Draco murmured, and then went on without giving Harry time to think up a response to that. "Would you be willing to spy on Robards for me and obtain an answer as to why he wanted to frame me specifically? I know the likely reasons. But I want the truth, and _not _in full trial, which would take me more time and money than it's worth."

Harry blinked a bit, then swallowed and said, "I'd have to come up with a reason to get close to him. But-yes, I think I could do that."

Draco's eyes were very wide, the pupils dilated in a way that made Harry wonder what he was thinking about. "You would do that," he said, soft, dreamy, questioning. "Although you've given up your career as a spy for the Ministry."

"I've given up that particular career, not all the skills that came with it," Harry pointed out. "The way I went and obtained information about the Potions companies should have told you that much."

Draco's mouth twisted in a sneer. "Do those abilities you want to employ include sleeping with people?" he asked. "Because the thought of that turns my stomach."

Harry felt as though he'd swallowed a mouthful of spiced hot chocolate. He bit down on his lips to still a smile. _He does care. _"No," he said. "But I can act, and I can observe people without letting them know what I'm doing. And I can plan and think quickly, and change my plans if someone catches me out." _And I know the perfect way to get close to Robards, now that I think about it._

"You didn't do that when I caught you," Draco said.

"Yes, I did," Harry said. "I decided to share what I knew with you instead of keeping it secret. Even though I still didn't know at that point if you were guilty or innocent. I could have concealed the truth, or I could have implied that someone else in the Ministry than Robards wanted you framed, or I could have said that I'd been sent to kill you."

"So why make the decision you did?" Draco edged closer to him. "That's the part I don't understand. Why am I worth getting angry over, changing your career over? Why are you so angry at Blaise? You can barely talk about him without venom dripping from your lips."

Harry shrugged helplessly. "Reading through those reports made me realize that you'd become like me," he said.

Draco's whole body froze, though in a way that still left him looking lovely and poised. "A whore?" he asked, through lips that didn't sound numb and clumsy the way Harry had imagined they would. "What a wonderful image."

"_No_," Harry said. "Will you stop harping on that? I liked the word 'courtesan' better."

Draco simply stared at him and waited for a reply.

Harry sighed and rubbed his face. He wasn't entirely sure that he could explain his reaction in a way that would satisfy Draco, but he could try. He wanted to try. That was the maddest part of the whole thing.

"You sounded like someone who had become successful in your chosen field," he said. "Like someone who had achieved a way to live his normal, everyday life, even though lots of people would prefer that you didn't. Granted, your burden was probably harder than mine because you were struggling with a bad reputation instead of a good one, but it's the same idea. You could have given up, and people would have accepted that as the right and proper ending of a story. You could have succumbed to one of your business rivals. You didn't. And I know you hate me talking about Zabini, but you could have curled up and stopped dating after he betrayed you, and you didn't. You did better than I did, in that respect," he added. "It took me a long time before I could start trusting people enough to sleep with them, after the first few."

Draco studied him in silence. Then he said, "But you didn't admire me enough to stop pursuing me for the Ministry."

"No," Harry admitted. "That's another way we're alike. I wanted the excuse to sleep with you, and then to see what was what. Although I wouldn't have fucked you so soon if you hadn't forced the issue after our dinner."

Draco snorted slowly, the sound reminding Harry of a huge stag he'd surprised in a field once. "Well," he said. "We're alike, yes. At cross-purposes, not sure why we want what we want, wishing things were simpler."

"In the matter of Robards, we're not." Harry tried to look at Draco as earnestly as he could, although Draco's frown made it difficult. "Do you still want me to investigate him and report to you?"

"Yes." Draco's hand moved for a moment as if he would crush the teacup. "I don't know that that's enough. But it's a beginning, and it's the thing I would want most from you at the moment, if I was allowing myself to want things."

Harry blinked, and then smiled. "Fine. I'll try to get a report to you in a few days, although it might take longer than that. He does have reason to be suspicious of me, after all, and he won't believe some of the most obvious ploys."

"And you might need more time than that to get him to trust you," Draco murmured.

Harry laughed, although he heard the sharp, scraping note in the back of his voice and stopped after a moment. "You're already being more reasonable than he ever was," he muttered.

Draco shook his head at Harry, not as if he couldn't believe him but as if he couldn't believe Robards, and then reached out abruptly and pulled him into a rough kiss. Harry went with it, glad that he'd cast the Breath-Freshening Charm after all. Draco's tongue probed and darted at his, and then pulled away, along with Draco's face and hands. He cursed shakily.

Harry nodded. "More desire there than there should be, right?" he murmured.

"I don't know why I want you," Draco said. "The eyes, the fame, the fact that you refused my hand in school? I want to know." He turned back and frowned at Harry. "On the other hand, I knew exactly why I wanted some of the other people I've dated, and that still turned out to be a disappointment. Perhaps you'll be different, in the obvious ways as well as the non-obvious ones."

"I'll try to be," Harry said simply. It was the only promise he could make, especially given some of what Draco had asked him to do.

Draco nodded, and then started when a shriek came from the aviary. Harry grinned. He was surprised that Fovea had left them alone for that long, really. Perhaps she had listened to Draco's voice, which would be unfamiliar to her, as long as it was speaking, but she wanted attention now that it had stopped.

"What in the world is that?" Draco demanded.

"Fovea, my cockatoo," Harry said. "Do you want to meet her?" He started for the aviary without asking further, whistling as he went along, to let Fovea know that he was bringing someone new.

Fovea bobbed her head when she saw him, but stopped and stared suspiciously at Draco. Draco actually smoothed a hand down his robes, as though Harry was introducing him to his parents. He reckoned the comparison might not be so silly as it had seemed at first when Fovea turned her back and shat down the side of her perch.

"Who would have thought a creature that fills the air with feathers and dust would have such high standards?" Draco muttered, eyeing Fovea with the kind of dislike Harry had seen grown into poison.

"If we do end up dating, or fucking, or whatever," Harry said, holding out his arm, "then you'll have to learn to get along with Fovea." She saw him, eyed him sideways, and then spread her wings and flew over. Harry only staggered briefly beneath her weight before he managed to get back upright and smile at Draco. "She spends most of her time with me when I'm here."

"And ignores the people she doesn't like, I suppose." Draco reached out as if he assumed that Fovea would bite his fingers off. Fovea snapped, and Draco yanked his hand back. Harry scratched her neck, feeling a little smug. Fovea was the only one in his life right now who protected him with that kind of ferocity. Ron and Hermione assumed that he could handle himself.

And mostly, they were right. But Draco made Harry feel unsure and nervous and young again.

"She pays all sorts of attention to the people she doesn't like," Harry said. "Like Robards. But not the sort of attention _they _like."

Draco's lips twitched into a smile as Harry had hoped they would do; he was probably imagining what would happen if Fovea ever got the chance to confront Robards. "Why did you name your bird the Latin word for trap, then?" he asked, taking a step closer and not jumping back when Fovea spread her wings. Harry had to give him credit for that. "Surely not advertising."

"Hermione suggested it, then wanted to take it back, but by then, I'd already fallen in love with it," Harry said. He rubbed his finger down her neck. She leaned against him and shut her eyes. "And her."

"How long do they live?" Draco looked as if he thought he might be able to stand on the other side of the room until Fovea fell dead of old age, if necessary.

"Several decades," Harry said, and laughed. "You should see the look on your face," he explained, when Draco glared at him.

"I'm not going to let a _bird _keep us apart," Draco said. "There are so many other things that could, after all."

Harry nodded, and went on scratching Fovea for a moment before he put her back on her perch. Having established that she was the most beloved thing in the room, she promptly went back to eating. Draco moved near again, eyes on Fovea's beak and claws. He flinched when she splintered a nut open.

"She doesn't bite that often," Harry said quietly. "She does make mistakes, of course, and isn't always able to tell when she should bite and when she shouldn't. A lot like her owner, really."

Draco caught his eye and then looked away hastily again, as if catching Harry's eye violated several international treaties. He coughed, and then said, "I will want you to report to me when you're done dealing with Robards."

"You said that already," Harry replied, amused enough to let it show in a smile when Draco turned back to him. "Did you want me to contact you when I have the information, or will you contact me?"

Draco frowned at him. "The one who is in possession of the information should necessarily contact the one who employed him."

"Unless that _one _wants to give the other _one _a measure of control over the situation," Harry said. He wondered if all the gifts he wanted to present to Draco would be as misunderstood as this one seemed to be. He would have to find a better class of gifts or a better manner of presentation if that was the case.

This time, Draco's cheeks turned a faint pink. "Sometimes a _one _needs to go by conventions more than he needs control of the situation," he said, in a voice that redefined "haughty" as "cool and slightly nervous." "You should contact me when you have the information. Not before."

Harry nodded, his mind already busy with the techniques that he was going to use to convince Robards he was on his side. He escorted Draco out of the aviary and held the door open for him.

Draco turned around and stared at him searchingly on the threshold. Harry shook his head. "I'm still not behaving according to your expectations?"

"You make me think that this might work," Draco said. "And that is not something I expected to think after all that had happened between us, no."

Harry smiled and reached out, catching Draco in a quick kiss before he could pull away. He darted back behind fist range and added, "I'll contact you. Watch out for my owl."

"I would hope that you would firecall," Draco said, and turned and marched away with his spine stiff. Harry wasn't sure whether the kiss had offended him or not, but he had a more urgent question to ask.

"How can I when I don't know what Floo address to use?" he called at his back.

"It's Private Aerie," Draco said, with a slight sniff as though to imply his disdain that anyone wouldn't know that, and then he got beyond Harry's wards and vanished with a crack of Apparition.

Harry shook his head, grinned, and stepped back inside the house. Fovea was sitting on the couch, and spread her wings wide like helpless arms as she stared up at him. Probably she was mourning her owner's taste, or lack of taste.

"Can I help it that I like him?" Harry took the couch beside her and stroked one finger down her neck, the way she most liked, which made her close her eyes and forget about holding her wings up. "And I do have an idea for what to do about Robards. Not something he'll believe immediately, but I only need to get close to him for a few minutes to confirm what I need to know."

As he thought about it, Harry's grin broadened still more. Reading about pure-blood traditions during the time when he'd furiously tried to distract himself from his pain hadn't been wasted.

* * *

"This is most unexpected, Potter."

Robards had a voice without the fun kind of stiffness in it, Harry thought, fighting to keep from rolling his eyes. It was stiff like bones, the kind of bones that he'd found rotting in the closet one time during one of his more...notable cases. Harry concealed those thoughts with a small smile and a glance over his shoulder and down the corridor, as if someone stood there to see him entering Robards's office.

Robards noticed, of course. He noticed _everything. _He leaned forwards and clasped his hands insistently in front of him. "Did you have something that you wanted to say to me, Potter?"

"Yes." Harry let the door fall gently shut behind him and then faced Robards. His hand hovered above one of his robe pockets. Let Robards assume he was going for his wand, instead of the vial concealed there. "I wanted to ask for a truce with you, and to arrange it with a Veritas Moment."

Robards stared at him, mouth falling slightly open, then snapped it shut. "The Veritas Moment is a time-honored tradition, of course," he said. _How does a half-blood like you know it? _Harry could tell he wanted to ask, but he didn't. "But I don't know that it's the appropriate means for arranging a truce in this case."

Harry looked aside, staring at the floor. Then he swallowed, when exactly the right amount of time had passed, and whispered, "I want to go on working for the Ministry. Sir."

He saw Robards's mouth open as though to take a hook this time, and smiled. _Bait planted._

The Veritas Moment was a short space of time in which two pure-bloods swore to tell the truth to each other, and under exactly the same conditions. If one swore to answer all questions, then the other must as well; if one was allowed to dodge or ask multiple questions at one time, then those options had to be open to the other. Harry could see the glitter deep in Robards's eyes.

The curiosity. The desire to demand what Harry really meant and felt, and, now, the means to do it.

"You are willing to swear that we would answer under the same conditions?" Robards said. "Under conditions of _absolute _truth?"

Harry smiled and nodded. "Whatever terms that you want to set, sir. I think that's fair, since I'm the one who's here to ask for a job." He paused, and then let his smile turn sheepish. "And if you have some tea. I'm parched."

"Simple enough," Robards said, and leaned back behind his desk, linking his hands together behind his head. He couldn't contain his smile. Harry had the impression that he didn't try, or else it was a pitiful attempt. "I'm impressed that you're doing this, Potter. It speaks well to your level of culture."

Harry smiled and sat down in the chair provided for him. "Thank you, sir."

All the while, his hand hovered above the vial of Veritaserum that he would make sure to place in both cups of tea.

_Answers under the same conditions. Answers of absolute truth. Yes, I'm willing to risk it._


	9. Risks Needed

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Risks Spotted_

Harry had no problem getting the Veritaserum into the tea. Robards had watched him obsessively before it arrived, but he leaned back in the chair and looked away when it came in, as though to prove that he could trust Harry. He overdid it, of course, linking his hands together behind his head and whistling, making the trainee Auror who had carried the teatray look at him in wonder. But that didn't really matter. What _mattered _was that the teacups came down in front of Harry, and he took the vial of Veritaserum out of his pocket and tapped the drops into the cups without slowing down. The vial slid back into his sleeve, the way he had learned to slide daggers, and then he turned and smiled, bowing as he offered the nearest one to Robards.

"Are you ready, sir?"

Robards took the tea from Harry and looked at him approvingly. He seemed to think that this was the way Harry always should have been: calmer than was natural, following pure-blood traditions, offering to serve him. That made a thought flash into Harry's brain that nearly choked him. Did Robards wish that _he _was one of the people Harry had been sleeping with?

Harry shook his head at the idea—mentally—after a brisk, horrified moment. No, it was unlikely. Robards might have harbored traces of that desire long ago, but, like other people who had told Harry they _once _would have liked to sleep with him, it would have been chased out of him by sheer disgust at this number of partners. Once you passed some magical number, Harry had learned, then you were a slut, not someone whose numbers might be misreported by the papers, and you didn't deserve any more sympathy.

He preferred to be something different than the Ministry's Whore, perhaps, now that he had learned what he _really _was. But he refused to be ashamed of simply sleeping with lots of other people and enjoying the sex with them when he did.

Robards took a swallow of his tea, and Harry managed it in the same moment, and then they both laid aside the cups and stared at each other.

"You may begin, Auror Potter," Robards said, though the stiff tone to his voice said that he wasn't happy about it.

Harry smiled. He considered the virtues of subtlety, and decided to abandon them. With any luck, he could ask the question and Robards still wouldn't know why he'd decided to ask that particular one. "Why did you want me to investigate Malfoy?"

Robards's hands came down as if he would push himself back from the desk, but his mouth was already moving, answering the question. "I hate him. I want him arrested and put away."

Harry blinked. Well. That was no less than he had expected, but still, _really_. And it was intriguing to know there was that much personal emotion behind what Harry had assumed was mostly a business rivalry. "Sir. Didn't you think it was a conflict of interest for you to be the one to handle the case and assign me to investigate it?" Robards could have hidden his animosity better by giving the case to one of his subordinates who could handle it in a more professional manner.

"I knew it was." Now Robards looked as if he thought he should just tear his tongue out of his mouth and have done, but of course he went on speaking. "But I didn't care. I wanted him gone."

Harry shook his head, lost. He had thought there was something subtle and long-reaching and long-ranging behind this. Now he had to wonder if perhaps the person who had made sure that Robards's name wasn't associated with the business that rivaled Draco's wasn't someone else, perhaps one of his business partners. Left to himself, Robards might have let the association dangle in the open. "I—badly enough to _frame _him? Why?"

Robards had a weird, tormented expression on his face, the mixture Harry of enjoyment in talking about what he really felt and anger that he had done so when it could incriminate him that Harry had seen in some other criminals under Veritaserum. "Everyone knew he had to be committing crimes of _some _kind to run his business that well. Everyone. But the investigations turned up nothing. What could that mean but that he'd bribed the Aurors sent to investigate?"

"That he was innocent?" Harry winced when he heard his own eager tone. Veritaserum in low doses like this made someone lose control of his emotions, and would reveal what he really felt as well as what he really thought. If Robards hadn't noticed it yet, that they were both under the potion, he would soon.

But Robards sneered at Harry. "Of course not. Someone with the Dark Mark on his arm can't ever really change his ways. I've tried to catch him before, with anything else that I could think of, but nothing succeeded. I'll _have _him. I've promised myself that. This was the only way I could think of."

Harry thought about asking whether the arrest of the smuggler who had pointed to Draco was fake as well, but that wasn't a question he needed to ask, not when he could check the records. "An even number of questions, sir, just as you specified," he said. "You have four to ask me."

"Veritaserum," Robards groaned, sweat starting out on his forehead. "Why did you break the tradition of the Veritas Moment?"

Harry laughed at him. "Of course I didn't. The Moment says that we have to answer under the same conditions, and we can each set one. Your condition was an even number of questions rather than an odd one. My condition was Veritaserum for both of us, simply not announced. You should have asked if you wanted to know. And that was your first question."

Robards looked aghast at himself, and rushed quickly on. "Did you really sleep with Malfoy?"

"Yes." Harry would have tried to hold back more than the bare answer ordinarily, since that was really all he owed, but he thought the complete truth would horrify Robards more. He put his boots up on the desk and swayed back and forth in his chair. "And it was _good_. The best I've ever had."

Robards looked as if he wanted to be on the other side of the room now, and continue asking questions at the same time. Cringing back and forth between his options, he finally shook his head and blurted, "Why did you start working as a whore for the Ministry?"

"Should I not have worked as a whore for you, but instead someone else?" Harry managed to parry before the potion took over and forced him to answer. "I did it because people abused my trust, and me, when I was still young and stupid. I skulked around for a while, but I knew that I could never really make the papers stop taking an interest in who I slept with, and I'm not good at hiding everything I do. Hiding in plain sight, behind a mask? Sure. But people are going to _notice _when Harry Potter goes into a restaurant, even if it's a Muggle one, especially since more and more of the _Prophet _writers are Animagi. And I decided that I didn't want those stupid people I'd slept with to ruin sex for me."

"But why did you sleep with _Malfoy_?" Now Robards just looked woeful, wistful. Harry studied him and nodded slowly. No, he didn't think Robards had wanted to sleep with him after all. Robards had wanted him to be a hero, the perfect Auror, and Harry had dared to do something that ruined that image.

_If you really knew me, you would know I was never perfect. _

"Because it was part of the job," Harry said. "Because you told me to. Because he was attractive. And then because I found myself liking him. Sympathizing with him. He's handsome, and he seems to find me handsome back." He refrained from touching the whip-mark next to his eye, but it was hard. Veritaserum could induce honesty through bodily gestures, too, sometimes, especially if emotions were running high. Of course, Harry felt pretty calm next to Robards. "I wanted to sleep with him, by the end."

"If you slept with him because you liked him, then you were compromised, and he could be guilty!" Robards pointed an accusing finger at him.

Harry shook his head and bent forwards over the desk, making Robards retreat as if he thought Harry might have a sexual disease spread by his breath. "And if you decided that I should investigate because you didn't like him and were sure that he was guilty although there was no evidence of such a thing?" he breathed. "You don't think that would compromise you far _more_?"

"There are people who would back me up!"

"And people who would back me." Harry gave him a slow smile and reached down for the antidote to the Veritaserum in his pocket. "Really, I think it's best if this just stays private, don't you?"

Robards shook his head, but Harry didn't know if that was in denial or not. He found out when Robards lurched to his feet and tried to come at him around the desk, his face twisted and his mouth open in a passionate shout.

Harry drew out the small object he'd been reaching for and shouted, "I call for an end to the Veritas Moment!"

Robards staggered to a stop, his eyes fixed on the knife Harry held. Then he straightened up, and an odd dignity surged over him like a wave, leaving him calm. "You're going to kill me, then," he said. "I always knew it, even though I decided to have no guards around me when I met with you."

"You're ridiculous sometimes," Harry said, the Veritaserum taking the honesty out of him whether he wanted it to or not, and then jabbed the knife hard under his fingernail.

The pain shot through him, made him drop to one knee, and occupied his mind for long moments, even as Robards shouted at him and shook him. By the time that he could convince his mind to concentrate on the moment in front of him again, Harry knew that the influence of the Veritaserum would have passed. He had given them both only a small dose. The Veritas Moment was a _moment_, after all.

When he stood, it was to see that Robards had retreated a small distance and was staring at him cautiously. "You're mad," he said.

Harry smiled. He had no idea whether Robards thought that was the truth or not, though he might still be responding that way under the conviction that he had no choice. "No," he replied. "That was an easy way to get the truth I wanted. And I wanted the truth, not the polite denials you might have managed to dress it up with if you were in front of a jury who also thought Draco was evil."

"You call him Draco," Robards said, and then turned his head away and spat on the floor of his office.

Since _he _wasn't the one who would have to clean the carpet, Harry just shook his head. "Yes, of course I do," he said. "And you can tell anyone else you like that—if you want me to tell everyone that the Head Auror is corrupt and taking out personal grudges through the medium of his job."

Robards sneered at him. "Everyone already thinks you're a whore, Potter. Who do you think they would be more likely to believe?"

Harry sighed and leaned a hip on the desk. He was surprised that Robards _needed _this much education, but if he did it well enough, then perhaps Robards would leave Draco alone from now on. "The papers see it that way, of course. But they also follow my career with fascination and opine about how terrible it is that I can't find my one true love and remember that I'm a hero. If you made it clear that I'm devoted to Draco—and I know you would put it that way—they would only become more interested, and some of them would be sympathetic. While a Head Auror who likes to present himself as the picture of rectitude would earn furious interest, but of quite a different sort, if someone discovered his corruption."

Robards glared at him. Harry smiled back. He knew what Robards was seeing, what turned his reaching instincts to one side. He was seeking some weakness in Harry's armor. He thought that he _had _to be able to find a secret shame, something Harry hadn't guarded well enough that he could use to manipulate him.

But that was what his friends hadn't understood, what Draco hadn't understood, what the Ministry and the people in it who despised him didn't understand. Harry was ashamed of the way that he had hurt people like Draco, yes. He was not ashamed of what he had done to _himself_. It came out of his own choices. He had made the decision not to stay faithful to one partner, he had made the decision to take that pain he had experienced and use it as a weapon to carve a new path for himself, he had not cowered before the betrayal. He never would, and that left his enemies no natural hold to cling to.

He might have made the _wrong _decisions, but no one was going to make him feel that way by simply sneering at them or being prudish.

"You want to keep this secret, then?" Robards's words had a faint, steaming edge of disbelief.

"In a way," Harry said. "Draco will know, of course, and depending on how much of a threat he feels you are, he might move. But it really is possible that it can end here. Let it go, Robards. I don't work for you anymore. I don't want my old job back. You have no reason to threaten Draco or think that any investigation will convict him, if no one has so far. This should be the natural end."

Robards looked at him for long moments before he slowly nodded. His face burned with hatred, but Harry had seen more disturbing things. It was all right. They might manage to come to an understanding after all.

"What will _you_ do, because I tried to use you?" Robards asked, as Harry moved towards the door.

Harry couldn't help it; he chuckled, and glanced at him over his shoulder. "Why would you _ask _that? Don't you see that it could get me thinking about revenge when I haven't, so far?"

Robards's fingers tightened in front of him, and he tried to form his face into a neutral mask.

Harry shook his head. "I think what you did was disgusting, but your fear of me is more disgusting still," he said. "Don't worry, Robards. What happens after this doesn't depend on me, but on you and Draco. You can make your decisions untainted by my _unnatural _desires."

He shut the door and went his way with a light heart. There was the chance, of course, that Robards would be stupid and escalate this, but Harry no longer felt that was a huge chance. He would take it.

* * *

"I had half-expected you to send your cockatoo with a message."

Harry smiled and leaned one shoulder on the mantle about his fireplace, watching as Draco's face floated in the flames. "Why would I do that when you asked me to contact you by firecall? Besides, I've tried to train her that way. She's more interested in eating the messages. And I can't train her to recite an entire letter without punctuating it with profanity."

Draco's face flushed, an odd experience to see when it was green the way the Floo connection made it. Harry thought it probably came from the statement that Harry wanted to respect his wishes, which Harry knew he didn't get often enough. He went on gently, describing the meeting with Robards and the way that the situation was balanced and depended on Draco now.

Draco's expression changed to thoughtful. "I cannot fear him simply because he hates me," he said, when Harry finished. "There are too many people around who do that. And so far, he hasn't been an effective business rival. But I could fear someone with his power if he finds another way to move against me."

Harry shrugged. "Just keep doing whatever you do to fool his investigators." He grinned when Draco glared at him. He knew that Draco wouldn't admit whether there was something illegal going on or not, and Harry didn't intend to ask.

"He could find someone like you to make a different kind of investigation, someone who might not be so scrupulous," Draco pointed out.

Harry shrugged again. "And then, if that person succeeded in finding anything suspicious, I would still bring out the tale of what happened when he tried to use me—all with the right amount of outrage about being used, of course, and how I can't believe he would try something like that. That would taint the results of the successful investigation, too. In the end, the Ministry would sack Robards or at least find someone else to fit the position of Head Auror simply to quiet the accusations."

Draco opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and looked thoughtfully at Harry.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What is it?"

"I think," Draco said, barely breathing the words, "that I don't know what to think. About the way that you could feign outrage. About the way that you talk about feigning outrage."

Harry blinked. "I _am _outraged that he used me against you and told me that there was proof that you'd committed a crime when there wasn't. Sorry if you thought that I didn't feel that anger."

Draco shook his head. "That's not what I mean, either," he said. "It's the same way I felt when I told you that I never would have thought you'd grow up to become the Ministry's Whore. You're not—the person I thought you were."

Harry stared at him, then snorted, because there just weren't that many ways he could respond to an accusation like that. "Because after I lied to you, slept with you under false pretenses, admitted that, conned information out of an archivist, and told you that I'd slept with many other people under false pretenses as well, you thought that lying to Robards would somehow be too hard for me?"

Draco shoved himself back from the fireplace, and for a moment Harry was afraid that he'd close the Floo connection. Then he said in a muffled voice, "I'm coming through. I think we need to discuss this in person."

Harry nodded, realized _that _was useless, and so said sharply, "Fine," moving out of the way.

It seemed a long time before the fire roared and admitted Draco. Despite everything, Harry could see him trying to cut off contact here. He had a strange problem with Harry's past, or he really couldn't forgive Harry for tricking him even though it had seemed as if he could, or he distrusted the information that Harry had pulled from Robards, perhaps. Any and all of those.

But Draco did come through the fire, although he stopped with one elbow on the mantle and studied Harry soberly instead of moving in. Harry watched him back. Draco looked thoughtful and controlled, more like the way Harry had seen him in his office before they slept together than at any time since.

_Strong enough to come onto my territory and confront me there, _Harry reminded himself, and waited.

"I still think," Draco said, "that you made the wrong choice all those years ago. That you should have done _anything _rather than turned to sleeping with people for money. You violated your own ethics. You violated your own soul."

Harry took a step forwards, and then made himself turn and stop. He Summoned a glass from the kitchen and then used _Aguamenti _to fill it with water. He drank it, making himself focus on the smooth rim of the glass against his teeth, the pour of cool liquid across his tongue, and nothing else.

"Harry?" Draco's voice was soft.

"I should have done anything else?" Harry asked, draining his voice of emotion, because that was the best thing he could do right now. "Such as become a Ministry political flunkey? Turn into an Auror who didn't care about corruption in the Department, as long as I got to arrest Dark wizards? Become a hired killer? They offered me that, you know. There were some people who thought I could be the best one to do it, since I could get into so many places just by asking for an invitation."

He turned back and caught Draco's eye. Draco stared at him with fascination and revulsion mixing and overlapping in his face.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Harry told him flatly. "_Nothing_. The choice I made was the wrong one because I didn't consider all the consequences, sure. But if you insist that it tainted me somehow, then you're no better than Robards, who thought that I couldn't be a hero or a good Auror because I was no longer pure. If you're jealous about the people I slept with before you, that's too bad, because I won't apologize for that. Some of those people I never slept with, although I spread the rumor that I did. Some of them were criminals, and what they did was infinitely worse than any betrayal I could have given them. Some of them were lovers I just enjoyed being with."

"But it's not you," Draco said. "It's not the person you were, it's not the person you should have become."

Harry stared at him, then gave a weary snort. "Because? Give me a reason why. You've seen for yourself that I'm willing to sleep with someone just because I want to and because the Ministry tells me to."

Draco's face turned a deep peach color and he glanced away, fiddling with a strand of his hair. "Heroes don't do that," he said. "Gryffindors don't do that." His voice was weak.

"But playboys do," Harry pointed out. "Reckless young men who hop from bed to bed do. Sure, some people have said that I'm only the first since the war, but plenty of people believe the other. Why did you choose that first perception, and decide that I should never be anything more than an innocent schoolboy?"

"Because what you did _disgusts _me."

Harry found himself relaxing, and smiled at Draco over the top of the glass of water. "Finally, an honest answer."

Draco stared at him now. "It doesn't bother you?"

"Of course it does," Harry said. "The same way it bothers me that it disgusted Robards, but not enough to stop using me. The way it bothers me that my friends thought I should still want nothing more than a family, and that I could walk out the door and find my perfect partner waiting for me, when they, of all people, ought to have known how difficult that is because of my fame. But you have the chance to change your mind, and what's between us right now is difficult for other reasons. I'll give you some time. If you do decide that I'm not disgusting, then we can be together. If not, then I'll leave you behind. I'm _done _having partners who keep telling me that all I have to do is change, just a little bit, and then we can be together." Two of the men he slept with in the first year after the war had been like that.

"You haven't changed," Draco hissed, and there was the flash of a cobra in his eyes. "If you think—"

"I've abandoned my job for you," Harry said, speaking very slowly. "I'm not going to take any other lovers until you decide that you don't want me. I've acknowledged that what I did was wrong. What I'm _not _going to do—and I've told you this before—is wallow in shame and wail about it and decide that I would have been better off doing anything else for the last ten years of my life. That's what you want? Go fuck someone new."

Draco reared back, staring at him. "I don't understand you," he said at last.

"I know," Harry said. He tried to soften his voice, but it was hard. He was so _tired _of people deciding that he didn't feel sufficiently guilty about sleeping with many people to match their own disgust. That was what it really was, their attempts to impose their own moral standards on Harry, not wanting him to be different for his own sake. "That's because we slept together in weird circumstances and there's a lot to forgive on your side. You don't trust me, most of all. You don't think I'll keep my promise not to sleep with other people, not yet."

Draco twitched as if someone had tried to punch him. "That's not it."

"Then what is it?" Harry asked, and waited, and didn't receive an answer. He nodded. "It's _all right_, Draco. I accept that it'll take a while for you to decide you want to trust me. Again, I'm sorry. But I'm sorry for what I did to you, not for every decision I've made in the last decade. If you can accept that, we'll be fine. If not, we're through."

Draco spent a few more seconds drawing in air through his nose and mouth as if he were going to speak. Then he turned away and departed through the Floo. Harry leaned his head on his hands and sighed.

He wanted this to work out. He didn't know if it would.

Fovea screamed from the aviary. Harry smiled and straightened up, then. No matter what the circumstances, there was always a cockatoo around to remind him that it wasn't the end of the world.


	10. Places Found

Thank you again for all the reviews!

This is the last chapter of _His Actium. _Thank you for reading.

_Chapter Ten—Places Found_

Harry was eating his breakfast when the Floo flared. He snorted and laid his toast down on the plate in his lap. Fovea promptly tried to steal a bite, only dancing out of the way when Harry swatted at her.

"Birds aren't supposed to have butter," Harry reminded her.

Fovea held up her foot at him in a reasonable approximation of the finger. Harry rolled his eyes and turned back, smiling, to the Floo, prepared to see almost anyone from Draco to Robards. Of course, if it _was _Robards, then he would have to interrupt his peaceful morning to inform some interested people of valuable gossip about the Head Auror.

The fires showed a Ministry office, but not the Head Auror's. The woman leaning back in the overstuffed chair was as sharp as a spear, and if the Floo hadn't colored her green, Harry knew he would have been looking at black hair and blue eyes. The determined chin was the same, as was the smile that could cheat a shark's. "Mr. Potter?"

Harry recognized her, and blinked before he smiled back. "Madam Gorget. I hardly thought my request would rate a personal interview."

"I am _very _busy, of course," Florence Gorget, Undersecretary to the Minister, conceded, with a modest little tilt of her head. "But I, in turn, hardly think this will take more than five minutes. You asked about a new job, as you appear to have departed rather abruptly from the Aurors. For no reason that will prevent you from working for us, I hope?"

"As long as you don't ask me to fuck people for money, no," Harry said.

Gorget only smiled in appreciation. "And you will only go to the parties you want to go to, as long as that's at least twice a month," she murmured. "Your acting skills can be useful, as it happens. We would like you to play the reformed and penitent wastrel, seeking some way to make a productive difference in the community."

Harry cocked his head. "And see who approaches me?" That might be Ministry allies and people who didn't matter to them as easily it was enemies he could spy on.

"You are quick," Gorget said. "They told me that you would be. Yes. For now, your job has the official title of Public Liaison to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but I find that such a mouthful. 'Bait' is so much shorter."

Harry grinned and held up his toast in salute. Gorget was a hard woman, who ran the Minister's schedule of meetings and the Ministry's spy network with equal efficiency. But she was also someone who understood the value in letting people do as they wanted and collaborate with her within the limitations of the job, because they would come up with better ideas that way and she would have to pay them less. As she had told Harry once, trying to regulate her employees' desires took up so much time that could be put to better use.

"I agree," Harry said. "With the understanding that the bait might want to be pulled in later and renegotiate some of the terms."

"I would expect nothing less." Gorget made a little bow to him and vanished from the flames. Harry waited to make sure that she wouldn't appear again, and nodded as he stood. Some underling in the Department probably already had the orders to owl him with all the pertinent details, such as how much pay he'd receive and the dates and details of Ministry parties for the month. All in all, Harry thought his job would still afford him pleasure, though a different kind than he was used to getting out of it.

_That's all to the good_.

As he rescued his toast from Fovea again, he wondered idly whether he should tell Draco about this, about whether it would make enough difference to him that he would feel a little more comfortable around Harry. Then he shook his head in determination. _No_. He would mention it if it came up in conversation, or if Draco asked him, but he was not going to be the pining suitor waiting around on the fringes of Draco's company for his notice.

Draco had reasons to distrust him. Merlin knew that Harry had given him plenty. On the other hand, ultimately he had nothing to go on but Harry's word that he had changed and wasn't going back to his old job. If the months passed and Harry kept his promises and still nothing changed in Draco's attitude, then there was no reason to think that it ever would, and Harry would find someone else to love and date.

_But it'll never be a perfect relationship, the kind of marriage that Ron and Hermione have. I need to be sure to remind them of that. _

* * *

"If you're going to be happy," was the only thing Hermione said when he told her, and turned her back to make sure that Rose wasn't stuffing bits of half-chewed biscuit in her hair.

"I am," Harry said, and sneaked a glance at Ron across the table. Ron still looked a little green, although he was manfully finishing up the salad that he'd had for lunch.

"It's unexpected, is all," Ron said defensively when Harry eyed him. "I didn't know you were serious about staying with him. Quitting your job is one thing, we've all been saying that you should do that for years, but you _know _that you could find someone else other than Malfoy. Anyone would be glad to have you."

Harry snorted. "Do you really think so? I don't. Maybe before I established my reputation as an incompetent playboy who only cares about where his next shag is coming from, but not now. I'll give him a while. He's the one who gets to decide. It's the only way, when he's been burned and I haven't." Then, as Hermione turned and raised one eyebrow, he qualified, "Well, my burning was so long ago that I'm mostly over it. He isn't, if you count what I did to him and what someone else did to him as going together."

Hermione stared at him. "And if he takes forever to make up his mind, that's still all right?" she asked. "You would put your life on hold because Malfoy can't decide whether he wants to share it?"

"For a few months," Harry told her, rolling his eyes. "That's all. If he can't trust me by then, I doubt he ever will."

"But will you find someone you can love and be with permanently?" Hermione asked softly, reaching out to catch his hand. "That's what we want for you, and it's the sort of thing that I think you've given up trying to find."

Harry smiled in spite of himself, a curve of his lips that made Hermione smile back. Ron put a hand on his shoulder from the other direction, and Harry basked in the feeling of support that his friends offered.

"I know," he said. "But I think I can fall in love with someone. I think I can fall in love with lots of people. That's the difference between me and you. You've only been in love once, both of you, and it's worked out for you. Not everyone is that lucky."

Ron and Hermione, of course, had to pause to give each other besotted looks. Harry snorted into his drink. They were sickeningly sweet, sometimes, but he was still glad to know them.

"All right, Harry," Ron said, and finally moved back from him. Hermione took a little longer, looking earnestly into Harry's eyes as if she expected to see something new. Harry just looked back patiently, not sure what in the world she wanted. He had told the truth, all the way around, including changing his mind if Draco decided that he couldn't trust him. "If that's the way you want it, mate."

"It is." Harry looked over at Rose and changed the subject. "So, does she have all her teeth in yet?"

The rest of the evening was spent in contented gossip about Rose and the rest of the Weasley family, and neither Ron nor Hermione referred to Draco again. Harry smiled. Sometimes it took them a while, but his friends _could _learn when they should back off, and they could share their lives with him as well as insisting that he could share his life with them.

He was always going to have this, no matter what else happened. That was wonderful.

* * *

Harry went to the first Ministry party he had agreed with Gorget that he should attend, and Draco was there.

Harry was aware of him from the moment he walked into the room. Draco wasn't taller than the other people he stood with, but he was more _present _than them to Harry's senses, as though an invisible fire burned within him. And, of course, it also helped that his head jerked around a moment later, probably because someone in his group had whispered a laughing comment about the Ministry's Whore, and his eyes fastened on Harry's face.

Harry made a little bow that Draco could have taken as being for himself, or that other people in the group could have taken as being directed at them—they probably did, from the raucous laughter that broke out—and turned away to pick up a drink from a tray. He was supposed to circulate and mingle, so he would.

Even if he _could _feel Draco constantly, first to the left, than to the right, then ahead of him, then behind. He kept his smile quiet and his head bowed, smothering the smile now and then when he had to speak to someone who most likely want to see the penitent side of him and nothing else.

"And is it true that you want a permanent family and a place to settle down?" a woman in a sheer blue gown asked him, staring at him with fascinated eyes the color of ice. Harry rifled his memories for her name and found it.

"I don't know for certain, Ms. Klaire," Harry said, and turned his head to stare moodily out the large windows of the hall into the garden, while a nonverbal incantation caused a small breeze to ruffle his hair. Emily Klaire looked on the verge of swooning. Harry knew what part he could carry well, the dark and brooding repentant hero whose pain no one could understand, and he used that to good effect. "I want to, but why would anyone have me, when they couldn't trust me to keep to one bed?"

"I'm sure that people will give you a chance when they see that your chastity is going to last this time," Klaire whispered, and her hand lingered above his arm for a moment, petting the air. "You just have to give them a chance."

Harry smiled mournfully back at her and kissed her fingers. "I know. But it's hard to wait, sometimes."

He walked away, feeling her eyes on his back, and the eyes of a lot more people who would have had an interest in watching the exchange, for some reason. He didn't think that he would attract any secret confessions tonight, but he could wait. He had time, now.

He turned around from picking up another flute of champagne and found Draco close behind him, staring at him.

Harry swept him a bow and grinned at him. "My Prince Charming. How are you enjoying the party? Has the princess shown up to carry you away yet?"

"Don't do that," Draco hissed, darting around a glance as if to make sure that they weren't noticed. Of course, lots of people were staring because Harry had done his best to make them interested during the evening, and Draco had been the one to approach him in public in the first place, so Harry wasn't sure why he should want to hide now. Draco flushed and tugged him behind a pillar. "What are you doing here?"

Harry sipped his drink, letting the bubbles tickle his nose, for a moment before he answered. He didn't want to make Draco wait, but on the other hand, he did want to give him the chance to move away if he wanted.

He didn't want. His cheeks got brighter and brighter with outrage as he stood there, staring at Harry, and Harry finally sighed and gave in.

"I'm here because of my new job," he said. "I'm to pull in people that might be interested in an emotionally vulnerable, lonely, reformed hero."

"So you haven't changed after all," Draco said, after coughing so hard that it sounded as though he was trying to clear a blockage from his lungs. "All those lines to me about how you had, and how I should accept that you had, and go away if I couldn't, were just a ploy."

Harry sighed. "No. I'm not going to sleep with anyone ever again as part of the job—with no one but you ever again, if that part of this works out." Draco's face went pale. Harry paused, but he didn't say anything, so Harry went on. "But I do still want to work for the Ministry, if only to show Robards that he can't chase me out, and there's no way that anyone would trust me unless they heard the full story, which I'm not about to confess. I won't be a whore. I'll be a spy, yes, and—"

"A Ministry flunkey."

Harry toasted him with the champagne. "Flunkies don't get to choose how many parties a month they go to, and they aren't _nearly _as well-paid."

"But still, that's all you are." Draco's eyes flashed with a passion that looked as if it was going to burn them out. "Someone who uses his fame and his name for the Ministry and pretends that he doesn't."

Harry sighed. He had to remember this was hard for Draco. But—

"What would you have me do, then?" he asked. "From what you've said, if I stayed at home, I think you would decide I shouldn't do that, because I was more active when I was younger. If I played Quidditch, I would be using my name unfairly to attract people to the games, or I would be overawing people who wouldn't want to compete with the great Harry Potter. If I was still at Hogwarts, it would be that I had never changed and that was wrong. Do you want me to freeze in time and still be a schoolboy?"

Draco flushed. Again, he didn't seem to know what to do, but at least his uncertainty was less hostile this time. He stared at his hands. Harry waited, swallowing now and then so that he wouldn't show his own intense anxiety.

"I don't want you not to have changed," Draco whispered. "I think—I think I need you to be the honorable one. As long as you are, then I know that _I'm _not, and that helps define me."

"I don't know that you've committed any crimes," Harry answered quietly. "I know that you have a successful business. I know that a lot of people think you must be doing _something _wrong, since you've overcome prejudice to sell Potions ingredients, but on the other hand, that very jealousy means they might be suspecting something wrong that doesn't exist. I think we're a lot alike, Draco. People will always talk about us in a way we don't deserve, because we don't fit their expectations." He reached out and rested his hand on Draco's arm. "I had hoped, though, that _we_ could see the ways in which the other man doesn't need to meet or match those expectations just to be worth something."

Draco's eyes met Harry's, and the air between them charged, shimmered, grew volatile. Harry felt his breathing quicken. He knew something would happen in the next moment, although he didn't know which one of them would give in to the tension first—

"Please excuse me," Draco blurted, and darted away.

Harry slumped back against the pillar and shook his head, still sipping from the flute. He ignored the stares in his direction effortlessly. Gorget could hardly blame him if no one approached him tonight. It was the first night with his new reputation. Doubtless, people would be cautious.

_I want to be both private and public, to be someone honest and laughing in private with Draco, but able to conceal that from other people if I want. But he wants me to be the same person in all situations, or it seems like that, and I—_

_ And I can't. I don't want to._

* * *

"Harry."

Harry rubbed his eyes, and then rubbed them again. He had been quietly sitting on his couch, eating breakfast and feeding pieces of it to Fovea, who took them, graciously nibbled them, and then dropped them and showed more interest in the parts that he couldn't feed her because they were unhealthy for birds. A normal morning, in other words. He hadn't expected Draco's face to appear in his fireplace with no more than a warning cough from the flames that they were igniting.

"Draco," he said, and laid aside the tray. Fovea hopped gleefully at it, then screamed as she hit the small Repelling Charm Harry had lifted above the unhealthy parts of the tray. A moment later, she was cocking her head so that she could figure out some way to hammer through it with her beak. Harry hid his smile and turned around. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Draco licked his lips. "Just thinking. And I realized that you were right, and I don't want you to remain the schoolboy. If you had swooped in as the hero trying to rescue me from the consequences of my actions, I would have been upset. If you had remained exactly as you were, the kind of person who would torment me and was honest and honorable to the point of stupidity, there would be no reason to think you were interested in a reformed Death Eater."

Harry nodded slowly. That was encouraging, but it didn't mean that Draco_ did _want something from Harry he could actually give. He wanted to know the truth for Draco's sake as much as his. Draco'd been betrayed, had his movements scrutinized, and then arguably suffered another betrayal when Harry took him to bed, although Draco had gone into that one with his eyes open. If he settled for second best, then he would probably curse himself and Harry years later and leave.

_I've never had a relationship like that that lasted years. If I did, I don't think I would want it to end._

"So." Draco sighed. "I wanted you to remain exactly as you were, but somehow be interested in fucking me at the same time. That was the fundamental incapability. You had to have changed to be interested in me in the first place."

Harry sighed in response. "It's more than that," he said quietly. "There's no reason for this job to have meant more to me than any other. Why did it? Why did I read those reports and feel like punching Zabini in the face? I've read plenty of other reports, as detailed, from former confidants and lovers, and never had that response."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "What are you saying?"

"That you're not alone in wanting incompatible things." Harry smiled reluctantly at him. "I wanted you to be different from the others I slept with, from the very beginning, but I treated you as if you were the same. I should have gone to Robards and told him I couldn't do this, if I was being absolutely consistent in my standards, because I was getting too personally and emotionally involved with the idea of dating you. But I didn't. I pressed blindly forwards, hoping it would work out, and—then it didn't, and I was _surprised_. I think we were both fools the first time we fell into bed with each other."

"The first time," Draco replied softly, his eyes tracking over Harry's face as if he could see all the emotions that Harry was hiding from him. "So you'd like there to be other times?"

"Time after time," Harry said, and held out his hand.

It didn't take long for Draco's face to dissolve from the fire and then reform again as he appeared, climbing out and over Harry's hearth. He hesitated when he got to Harry, though, and tugged on his collar as though auditioning for something. Harry watched him with heart pounding, and wondered which of them would speak first and break the silence.

As it turned out, that was Fovea, who turned around to deposit a large blob of shit on the floor. Draco laughed much louder and longer than that was worth, making Fovea look at him with wonder and then approval, but Harry was smiling as he reached out and took his hands.

"So," he said. "You think you can stand to stay with me even though I'm still a liar and a spy, and even though I came to you under false pretenses, and even though I'm not the hero that you wanted me to be?"

"I think you might be more a hero than I knew you were," Draco said. "I wanted someone confident in what he wanted, and that's you. I only _thought _you were like that in school, didn't I? You were nowhere near as confident as you pretended."

Harry grinned and shook his head. "Except on the Quidditch pitch, no. I was scared out of my mind half the time and bulling around recklessly the rest."

"And your being a spy and a liar might not be so bad, because it would give me knowledge of you that most of the rest of the world doesn't have," Draco continued in a similar tone. Then, abruptly, his hands shifted from Harry's hands to his robe collar. "As long as you don't lie to me, or sleep with someone other than me," he added, in a tone that could have cooked rabbits. "You do, we're done."

"I'll never want to," Harry said quietly, and reached up to cup the back of Draco's neck.

Draco nodded, although not with the kind of strength that Harry would have liked to see. Well, he'd learn to trust Harry fully in time, or this wouldn't work out, and they would both find someone else. Harry no longer believed what he had when he was younger, that there was only one perfect person out there for everyone and you only had a limited amount of time to find them. He'd simply seen too much good in too many people for that to be true.

"And you can put up with someone who might be a criminal, who has a history of insulting and feuding with your best friends, and who knew you were a spy when he slept with you?" Draco asked.

"Your knowing saved me the awkward work of explaining it later," Harry said, and Draco snorted hard enough to offend Fovea. "I don't have any evidence that you're a criminal, and you haven't insulted my best friends lately. If you do it in front of me, I'll ask you not to. If you do it again, I'll warn you. And if you do it again, I'll break up with you."

Draco looked as if he was struggling not to smile. "That's something I could actually like in you," he murmured. "The lack of dependence on me. The certainty that you would find someone else like me."

"Not someone else like you," Harry said, and tugged him gently nearer. "Just someone else. We're not all in all to each other, but no one says that we have to be."

And he kissed him.

This time, he let his tongue wander the way he wanted it to, and ignored the considerations about whether he was being seductive enough, or too seductive, or offensive. Draco's mouth was warm, his tongue just as bold as Harry's. Harry found himself groaning and kneading Draco's shoulders sooner than he would have liked. Draco was the one to end the kiss, pulling back with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Well," he said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"I liked that."

Fovea waddled across the couch, inserting herself between them, and squatted on Harry's knee with a challenging look at Draco. Harry grinned and stroked the feathers on her back, smoothing them down. "The greatest challenge might be getting along with her, really, rather than Ron and Hermione."

Draco rubbed the pulse in Harry's wrist with his thumb. "Then I reckon it's a good thing that I came here intending to accept you, bird and all."

Fovea spread her wings, cocked her head to the side, and bobbed it up and down several times. Draco blinked. "What is she doing?"

Harry scratched her again with one finger and leaned up to kiss Draco, since he knew Fovea wouldn't mind it now. "Letting the world know that we have her blessing." Draco's lips were chapped and gentle. "And a cockatoo's blessing is all we lacked."

**The End.**


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